Baltic League

Baltic League
Full name	TrioBet Baltic League
Association	Eesti Jalgpalli Liit Latvijas Futbola federācija Lietuvos Futbolo Federacija
founding	1990 (founded in 2007)
Teams	16
Game mode	Knockout system
Title holder	Discount Riga (1st title)
Record winner	VMFD Žalgiris Vilnius (2)
Record scorer	V. Baranauskas (18)
Website	www.balticleague.com ( Memento of March 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )

The Baltic League ( dt . : Baltic League ), official name TrioBet Baltic League , was a football tournament for Baltic club teams, which has been held regularly since 2007 with changing modes. The five best teams from Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania as well as the defending champion took part. The tournament was organized by the Baltic League Committee . Before that, there were events in 1990, at that time still in pure league form, and in 1993/94.

history

In 1990 the Baltic League was held for the first time . Two teams from Estonia, six teams from Latvia, nine teams from Lithuania and one team from Russia took part. The game was played in pure league form with two legs, so that originally each team should play 34 games. However, due to the withdrawal of one team from ongoing match operations, most teams only played 33 games, three teams only played 32.

In 1993/94 the competition was held for the second time. In addition to one team each from Estonia and Russia, two Latvian and three Lithuanian teams took part. A Belarusian team was there for the first time. The eight participants were divided into two groups of four teams each, which played off the participants for the semi-finals in the first and second legs, for which the first and second group qualified. The semi-finals and the subsequent final were decided in a single game.

In 2007 the Baltic League was reintroduced. The four best-placed teams of the Estonian Meistriliiga , the Latvian Virslīga and the Lithuanian A Lyga took part. The tournament was divided into a group phase and a knockout phase .

The twelve participating clubs were drawn into four groups. Three groups consisted of a first place, a second place and a fourth place from the leagues. In the fourth group, the three third-placed teams from the respective leagues played. In the group stage, everyone plays against everyone else in the first and second leg.

The four winners and the four runners-up in this group stage advanced to the quarter-finals. The quarter-finals, the following semi-finals and the final final were played in knockout mode with a return leg. As in the UEFA Cup , tied goals were decided by the away goals rule . In 2008 the final was decided in just one game.

There were fundamental changes for the 2009/10 season. The group phase was abolished and the top five teams from each country qualified, and the country of the defending champion also provided one participant.

In a meeting on July 1 and 2, 2009, the UEFA Executive Committee approved the continuation of the competition until the 2011/12 season.

reporting

In the 2008 season, the semi-finals were broadcast live on television and on the Internet for the first time. The Latvian broadcaster LTV7 broadcast the second leg between Skonto Riga and FK Riga , the Lithuanian broadcaster Sport1 broadcast the first match between FBK Kaunas and FK Ventspils . The other two games were broadcast on the Internet at eSports.lv . The broadcast was interrupted in the first game shown on the Internet, with the game being available as a recording afterwards. This new media orientation was retained for 2009.

Finals

season	Home team	result	Away team	place	referee
1990	Žalgiris Vilnius	League mode	Sirijus Klaipeda	League mode
1993/94	Žalgiris Vilnius	0: 0, 10: 9 i. E.	Riga discount	unknown
2007	FK Ventspils	1: 3	Liepājas Metalurgs	Ventspils Olimpiskais Stadium , Ventspils	Kristo Tohver
	Liepājas Metalurgs	5: 1	FK Ventspils	Daugava Stadium , Liepāja	Audrius Žuta
	Liepājas Metalurgs won 8-2 on a return leg
2008	Riga discount	1: 2	FBK Kaunas	Skonto Stadium , Riga	Hannes Kaasik
2009/10	Sūduva Marijampolė	3: 3 n.V. , 3: 5 i. E.	FK Ventspils	Sūduva Stadium , Marijampolė	Sten Kaldma
2010/11	FK Ventspils	1: 1 n.V. , 5: 6 i. E.	Riga discount	Ventspils Olimpiskais Stadium , Ventspils	Nerijus Dunauskas

Top scorer

season	Name of the player	society	Gates
1990	V. Baranauskas	Sakalas Šiauliai	18th
1993/94	unknown
2007	Ģirts Karlsons	Liepājas Metalurgs	10
2008	Aleksandrs Cauņa	Riga discount	8th
2009/10	Vjatšeslav Zahovaiko	FC Flora Tallinn	4th
2010/11	Eduards Višņakovs	FK Ventspils	4th
	Artūrs Karašausks	Riga discount

Individual evidence

1. ↑ TrioBet Baltic League winner will be decided in one match (English), July 2008. Accessed on April 8, 2011.
2. ↑ ^{a b} TrioBet Baltic League in a brand new format for next season (English), July 2008. Retrieved on April 8, 2011.
3. ^ UEFA Executive Committee meeting decisions from Vilnius meeting , July 2, 2009. Accessed April 8.
4. ↑ TBL semi-finals live on TV and internet (English), September 2008. Retrieved on April 8, 2011.
5. ↑ Broadcasting canceled by eSports.lv technical failure (English), September 2008. Accessed April 8, 2011.
6. ↑ Baltic League 2007 Top scorers ( Memento of 25 February 2009 at the Internet Archive (English)), November 2007. Retrieved on March 16, 2011th

Web links

Baltic League on rsssf.com