“Liepāja” footballers joined “Ventspils” “Viensviens” Latvian Cup final on Wednesday.
“Liepāja” beat the “Valmiera” team at home with 2: 0 (0: 0) and on November 8 in Ventspils will measure their strength with the home team.
The first half of the game was without particularly dangerous moments, but from the 14th minute Valmiera played for ten men, because Kristers Lūsiņš saw the red card against Artūrs Karašauskas in front of him. Playing in the minority, in the 31st minute the Vidzeme players managed to slightly endanger the safety of the home goal by hitting Dibrille Gay in an acrobatic jump from a close distance.
At the beginning of the second half, Liepāja team forced the guests to the penalty area, which gave the result in the 53rd minute. Karašausks lightly hit the head in the direction of the goal, the ball hit the pole and came into the net – 1: 0 in favor of Liepaja. Six minutes later, the ball hit the Valmiera goal again, but this time the exact shot was not counted.
In the 68th minute of the match, after the march in Liepaja, the team from Liepaja doubled the lead. Karašauskas’s shot was blocked by Rūdolfs Soloha, but the ball hit Eduards Tīdenbergs’ feet, the Liepaja midfielder reaching 2: 0.
In the second half of the second half, the owners of the field threatened the safety of “Valmiera” gates several more times, but the result remained unchanged.
It has already been reported that “Ventspils” won the RFS 1-0 at home in the Latvian Cup semi-final game on Wednesday, which triumphed in this tournament last year. Lukass Vilela scored the victory goal for the Kurzeme team.
The Kurzeme derby was in the Latvian Cup final for the last time in 2013, when “Ventspils” won the “Liepājas Metalurgs” team with a 2: 1 extension. These two teams met in the title game in 2005 and 2011, when Ventspils were also superior.
“Valmieras” club had not played in the Latvian Cup semifinals before, but the people of Liepaja won the trophy of this tournament in 2017.
This game was originally supposed to start at the same time as the other semi-final duel, but the day before, one of Valmiera’s representatives came into contact with a Covid-19 patient for a short time, as a result of which the unit was quickly tested. The Latvian Football Federation (LFF) reported that all tests were negative.
Due to the above reason, both teams started the semi-final match on Wednesday at 15 or two hours later than originally planned.
“Riga” won the cup holder RFS in the quarterfinals in a tense battle with 3: 2, Valmiera managed to win “Tukums 2000” / TSS at the very end with 1: 0, “Liepāja” won “Jūrmala” “Spartaku” 3: 1, but in Jelgava “Ventspils” after 0: 0 draw In 120 minutes of the game, “Jelgava” won with 4: 3 in a series of 11-meter penalties.
In the Latvian Cup, domestic clubs compete not only for the trophy, but also for the right to represent Latvia in the UEFA club tournament.
In the first round, 26 teams from the Latvian second and third leagues participated, two teams automatically qualify for the next round. Thirteen first-round winners, two wild-card recipients, and nine first-league clubs took part in the second round.
Twelve second-round winners took part in the third round, and ten Optibet Premier League clubs joined the six winners in the eighth final.
The final at the Olympic Center “Ventspils” stadium will take place on November 8. The Ventspils Latvian Cup final was hosted for the only time in the 2014/2015 season, when the hosts acknowledged the superiority of “Jelgava” footballers in the final with 0: 2.
In the history of the Latvian Cup, since 1936, 38 different club teams have won the prestigious trophy, but since the restoration of the country’s independence, 12 different teams have raised the cup over their heads.
Since 2017, the winners of the tournament have been presented with a new design and identity trophy.
The current trophy holder is the RFS team, which was with it for the first time in history last year. Last year, the people of Riga only surpassed the most titled cup team “Jelgava” of the last decade in overtime.
The most titled team in the tournament is the non-existent “Skonto”, which triumphed in the tournament eight times from 1992 to 2012.
The Latvian Cup in football was played in one season until 2008, but since 2009/2010 it has been started in the previous season for the next eight years and completed in the spring of next year. Thus, the fourth Latvian participant in the Euroccups was determined only about a month before the start of the new UEFA Europa League season.
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