Latvia’s Journey through the European Championship Qualification Cycle: Points, New Players, and Future Prospects

Before the qualification cycle, the team management set itself the goal of claiming points in matches with all teams.

“We weren’t objectively close to it against Croatia, but we were able to collect points against Wales and Turkey. The result is not very good, but not catastrophic either,” sums up the coach.

He also points out that the team experienced great changes during the cycle, and at the end of it, three new players have appeared in the national team, who have won their place in the team – defender Daniels Balodis, as well as midfielders Aleksej Saveljevs and Eduards Dashkevich, while several more players are close to it. .

In Group D, after seven matches, Turkey is the leader with 16 points, Croatia has 13 points, Wales has 11 points, Armenia has eight points, and Latvia has three in eight matches.

Latvia started the selection cycle with a 0:1 loss away to Wales, lost 2:3 to the Turkish national team at home and lost 1:2 to Armenia. In September, Latvia lost 0:2 at home to Wales and lost 0:5 away in a match against Croatia, but in October Latvians beat Armenia 2:0 at home, getting the first points, and lost to the Turks 0:4 away.

On November 21, Latvians will meet Poland in a test match in Warsaw.

The winners of the first two places of the ten groups enter the final tournament, while three more participants of the final tournament will be determined in March 2024 in the “play-off” games of the A, B and C leagues of the Nations League.

The European Championship will be held in ten German cities from June 14 to July 14, 2024.

In addition to Germany, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Scotland, Turkey, Austria, England, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania and Denmark have already secured a place in the final tournament.

The current European champion is Italy, who in 2021 beat England in the final in London in penalty kicks.