Soccer team starts World Cup campaign with a win

Take note – story published 7 years ago

Latvia's national football (soccer) team got their World Cup qualifying campaign off to a satisfatory start September 6 with a win over Andorra.

However, the narrow scoreline against a team of part-timers - just 1:0 to the visitors in La Vella - will be of some concern to coach Marians Pahars.

Valerijs Sabala scored the only goal at the beginning of the second half.

Although Latvia won, and controlled the ball for most of the match, Andorra had several great scoring chances - at the end of the first half, the ball hit the goalpost, and at the end of the match Andorra's captain Ildefons Lima was close to scoring an equalizer.

In the other Group B matches yesterday, Switzerland defeated Portugal 2:0, while the Faroe Islands played Hungary to a scoreless draw.

Latvia will play its next two WC qualifiers at home in October against the Faroe Islands and Hungary.

The winners of the nine European qualification groups, as well as the eight best second placed finishes, will qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

 

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