Latvian national football team

Latvia
Latvija

Association	LFF
confederacy	UEFA
Technical sponsor	Adidas
Head coach	Dainis Kazakevics (since 2020)
captain	Andris Vaņins
Record scorer	Māris Verpakovskis (29)
Record player	Vitālijs Astafjevs (167)
Home stadium	Discount stadium
FIFA code	LVA
FIFA rank	137th (1079 points) (as of July 16, 2020)
First jersey Second jersey
Balance sheet
389 games 111 wins 91 draws 187 defeats
statistics
First international match Latvia 1: 1 Estonia Riga , Latvia ; September 24, 1922
Biggest win Estonia 1: 8 Latvia Tallinn , Estonia ; August 18, 1942
Biggest defeat Sweden 12: 0 Latvia Stockholm , Sweden ; May 29, 1927
Successes in tournaments
European Championship
Participation in the finals	1 ( first : 2004 )
Best results	2004 preliminary round
(As of October 15, 2019)

The Latvian national football team is the national football team of the Republic of Latvia . It is controlled by the Latvian football association Latvijas Futbola federācija (LFF), which was founded in 1921.

Latvia has not yet qualified for a World Cup. The greatest success so far is the qualification for the 2004 European Championship under coach Aleksandrs Starkovs . From this they were eliminated in the preliminary round, but were able to achieve a 0-0 against the highly favored Germany .

Since then, Latvia has not been able to match the success of participating in the 2004 European Championship. Today the team plays a subordinate role in Europe. After the poor showing in the UEFA Nations League 2018/19 Latvia plays in the UEFA Nations League 2020/21 the only national team that is not from a small state comes in which letztklassigen League D .

The most important tournament for Latvia so far has been the Baltic Cup , of which the team is the record winner.

In the FIFA world rankings, the Latvian national soccer team ranks 143rd out of 210 places (as of October 24, 2019).

Participation in international competitions

Participation in the UEFA European Championship

→ Main article : Latvian national football team / European championships

After leaving the Soviet Union, Latvia took part in qualifying for the European Championship in 1996 for the first time and has so far qualified once for a final round. Since Latvian football did not play a major role in the Soviet Union, no Latvian players were used in the national football team of the USSR .

year	Host country	Participation until ...	Last opponent	Result	Comments and special features
1996	England	not qualified			In the qualification of Portugal and Ireland failed, which also could not qualify.
2000	Netherlands and Belgium	not qualified			In the qualification of Norway and Slovenia failed.
2004	Portugal	Preliminary round	Czech Republic , Germany , Netherlands	-	After two defeats and a draw, eliminated as bottom of the group.
2008	Austria and Switzerland	not qualified			In qualifying at the eventual winners Spain and Sweden failed.
2012	Poland and Ukraine	not qualified			In the qualification to Greece and Croatia failed.
2016	France	not qualified			In the qualification of Czech Republic , Iceland and Turkey failed.
2021	Europe	not qualified			In the qualification to Poland and Austria failed.

Participation in the FIFA World Cup

1930 in Uruguay	not participated
1934 in Italy	not participated
1938 in France	not qualified
1950 to 1990	was part of the USSR
1994 to 2018	not qualified

Participation in the Baltic Cup

Record winner with 24 of 49 titles, including the last four competitions (2018, 2016, 2014, 2012).

See also : Baltic Cup

Current squad

#	Item	player	Games	Gates	society
12	TW	Roberts Ozols	0	0	Riga FC
23	TW	Pāvels Šteinbors	10	0	Arka Gdynia
1	TW	Andris Vaņins	100	0	FC Zurich
17th	FROM	Antonijs Černomordijs	3	0	Riga FC
4th	FROM	Kaspars Dubra	35	2	FK Oleksandrija
19th	FROM	Vitālijs Jagodinskis	31	0	FK RFS
8th	FROM	Raivis Andris Jurkovskis	5	0	FK Liepāja
	FROM	Vitālijs Maksimenko	49	1	NK Olimpija Ljubljana
3	FROM	Mārcis Ošs	9	0	Neuchâtel Xamax
7th	FROM	Ritvars Rugins	35	0	Riga FC
11	FROM	Roberts Savaļnieks	18th	0	FK RFS
21st	MF	Boriss Bogdaškins	1	0	Valmieras FK
14th	MF	Andrejs Cigaņiks	8th	0	FK RFS
10	MF	Jānis Ikaunieks	26th	3	FK Liepāja
8th	MF	Vladimir's Kamešs	22nd	2	Riga FC
13	MF	Mārtiņš Ķigurs	3	0	FK Liepāja
5	MF	Oļegs Laizāns	53	0	Riga FC
2	MF	Daniels Ontužāns	2	0	FC Bayern Munich II
16	MF	Igors Tarasovs	32	1	FK Spartaks Jūrmala
	MF	Kristers Tobers	6th	0	FK Liepāja
	ST	Vladislavs Fyodorovs	3	1	Riga FC
22nd	ST	Vladislavs Gutkovskis	16	0	Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza
9	ST	Dāvis Ikaunieks	21st	4th	FK Jablonec
	ST	Artūrs Karašausks	25th	1	Riga FC
18th	ST	Ēriks Punculs	1	0	Valmieras FK
15th	ST	Deniss Rake's	32	1	Riga FC
20th	ST	Roberts Uldriķis	12	1	FC Sion

Source: (As of October 15, 2019)

Trainer

• Ferenc Voggenhuber (1935)
• Rudolf Stanzel (1936–1937)
• Rudolf Stanzel (1938–1939)
• Second World War (1939–1945)
• Part of the national soccer team of the USSR (1945–1991)
• Janis Gilis (1992-1997)
• Revaz Dzodzuashvili (1998-1999)
• Gary Johnson (1999-2001)
• Aleksandrs Starkovs (2001-2004)
• Jurijs Andrejevs (2004-2007)
• Aleksandrs Starkovs (2007-2013)
• Marians Pahars (2013-2017)
• Aleksandrs Starkovs (2017-2018)
• Mixu Paatelainen (2018-2019)
• Slavisa Stojanovic (2019-2020)
• Dainis Kazakevics (2020–)

Source:

statistics

Record player

Vitālijs Astafjevs replaced on February 2, 2000 with his 64th international match from the pre-war record holder Ēriks Pētersons , who came to 63 games between 1929 and 1939. Astafjevs was also the European record holder from November 14, 2009 to March 24, 2017 when he replaced Estonian Martin Reim with his 158th international match and was then surpassed by Gianluigi Buffon . Worldwide, only six players have played more international matches, and Astafjevs has never played in a World Cup finals.

rank	Surname	Calls	Gates	position	Period
01.	Vitālijs Astafjevs	167	16	midfield	1992-2010
02.	Andrejs Rubins	117	09	midfield	1998-2011
03.	Juris Laizāns	113	15th	midfield	1998-2010
04th	Imants Bleidelis	106	10	midfield	1995-2007
05.	Mihails Zemļinskis	105	12	Defense	1992-2005
06th	Māris Verpakovskis	104	29	attack	1999-2014
07th	Igors Stepanovs	102	04th	Defense	1995-2011
08th.	Andris Vaņins	100	00	goal	2000–0000
09.	Aleksandrs Koļinko	094	00	goal	1997-2015
10.	Kaspars Gorkšs	089	05	Defense	2005-2017

Source: (As of November 19, 2019)

Record goal scorers

Māris Verpakovskis has been the record scorer since October 10, 2009 when he beat Ēriks Pētersons' pre-war record with his 25th goal in a 2: 5 in the World Cup qualifier against Greece .

rank	Surname	Gates	Calls	Quota	Period
01.	Māris Verpakovskis	29	104	0.28	1999-2014
02.	Ēriks Pētersons †	24	063	0.38	1929-1939
03.	Vitālijs Astafjevs	16	167	0.10	1992-2010
04th	Juris Laizāns	15th	113	0.13	1998-2014
	Marian's Pahars	15th	075	0.20	1996-2007
06th	Alberts Šeibelis †	14th	054	0.26	1925-1939
07th	Ilya Vestermans †	13	023	0.57	1935-1938
	Mihails Zemļinskis	13	105	0.12	1992-2005
09.	Aleksandrs Cauņa	12	045	0.27	2007-2015
	Valerijs Sabala	12	053	0.23	2013–0000

Sources: (as of November 19, 2019)

International matches against German-speaking national soccer teams

→ Main article : List of the international matches of the Latvian national football team

International matches against the German national soccer team

	date	place	Home team	result	Visiting team
01.	October 13, 1935	Koenigsberg	German Empire	3-0	Latvia
02.	June 25, 1937	Riga	Latvia	1: 3	German Empire
03.	June 19, 2004	Postage ( )	Latvia	0-0	Germany

International matches against the Liechtenstein national football team

	date	place	Home team	result	Visiting team
01.	November 15, 1994	Ash trees	Liechtenstein	0: 1	Latvia
02.	September 6, 1995	Riga	Latvia	1-0	Liechtenstein
03.	February 28, 2001	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	0: 2	Latvia
04th	November 17, 2004	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	1: 3	Latvia
05.	June 8, 2005	Riga	Latvia	1-0	Liechtenstein
06th	March 28, 2007	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	1-0	Latvia
07th	November 17, 2007	Riga	Latvia	4: 1	Liechtenstein
08th.	October 16, 2012	Riga	Latvia	2-0	Liechtenstein
09.	22th of March 2013	Vaduz	Liechtenstein	1: 1	Latvia

International matches against the Luxembourg national football team

	date	place	Home team	result	Visiting team
01.	March 27, 2002	Hesperange	Luxembourg	0: 3	Latvia
02.	March 8, 2004	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	3: 4	Latvia
03.	March 30, 2005	Riga	Latvia	4-0	Luxembourg
04th	September 6, 2006	Hesperange	Luxembourg	0-0	Latvia
05.	March 28, 2009	Luxembourg	Luxembourg	0: 4	Latvia
06th	April 1, 2009	Riga	Latvia	2-0	Luxembourg
07th	2nd September 2016	Riga	Latvia	3: 1	Luxembourg

International matches against the Austrian national football team

	date	place	Home team	result	Visiting team
01.	October 5, 1937	Vienna	Austria	2: 1	Latvia
02.	March 29, 1995	Salzburg	Austria	5-0	Latvia
03.	August 16, 1995	Riga	Latvia	3: 2	Austria
04th	November 9, 1996	Vienna	Austria	2: 1	Latvia
05.	June 8, 1996	Riga	Latvia	1: 3	Austria
06th	February 9, 2005	Limassol ( )	Latvia	1: 1 (5: 3 i.E.)	Austria
07th	June 7, 2011	Graz	Austria	3: 1	Latvia
08th.	September 6, 2019	Wals-Siezenheim	Austria	6-0	Latvia
09.	19th November 2019	Riga	Latvia	1-0	Austria

International matches against the Swiss national football team

	date	place	Home team	result	Visiting team
01.	April 2, 1997	Lucerne	Switzerland	1-0	Latvia
02.	October 11, 2008	St. Gallen	Switzerland	1: 2	Latvia
03.	September 9, 2009	Riga	Latvia	2: 2	Switzerland
04th	March 25, 2017	Lancy	Switzerland	1-0	Latvia
05.	3rd September 2017	Riga	Latvia	0: 3	Switzerland

See also

• List of the national matches of the Latvian national football team

Web links

Commons : Latvian national soccer team  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Website of the Latvian Football Association LFF (Latvian, English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The FIFA / Coca-Cola World Ranking. In: fifa.com. July 16, 2020, accessed July 21, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Iepriekšējā spēle ( Latvian ) lff.lv. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
3. ↑ https://www.transfermarkt.de/lettland/mitarbeiterhistorie/verein/3555
4. ↑ Nākamā spēle ( Latvian ) lff.lv. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
5. ^ Latvia - Record International Players
6. ↑ PLAYERS for Latvia
7. ↑ lff.lv: Statistics