The men's national football team of Latvia will play its first match of the new UEFA Nations League today. The League C group match against the national team of Armenia will take place in Yerevan and will start at 19:00 Latvian time. The match will be broadcast live on LTV7. After this, the Latvian team will host Cyprus on September 28, play at home against Montenegro on October 2, and meet the Cypriots away on October 5. The final matches of the group stage will take place in mid-November — against Montenegro away and Armenia at home. The squad for the Latvian national team includes 26 players, among whom are seven debutants: defenders Dennis Cirkin, Oskars Vientiess, and Oskars Rubenis, midfielders Kristers Čudars, Danila Patičuks, and Markus Strods, as well as forward Albert Aleksanyan. Midfielder Kristaps Grabovskis will miss the match against Armenia but may play in one of the following matches. One of the leaders of the Armenian national team remains attacking midfielder Eduard Spertsyán from the Saudi club Al-Ahli. He has scored 12 goals in 42 matches for the national team, including two goals against Latvia in the previous Nations League campaign. In the FIFA rankings, Latvia is in 137th place, while Armenia is in 107th. In the history of the teams, they have met six times. Latvia has won two matches, one ended in a draw, and Armenia has won three. In the last Nations League campaign, the Armenian team defeated the Latvians twice — with scores of 4:1 and 2:1. In the spring of this year, Paolo Nicolato's team retained its place in League C by defeating the Gibraltar national team 2:0 on aggregate in two playoff matches. In June, the Latvian footballers finished fourth in the Baltic Cup.
