2009 Latvian Higher League Information & 2009 Latvian Higher League Links at HealthHaven.com

Latvian Higher League
Season	2009
Relegated	Dinaburg FC
Matches played	138
Goals scored	453 (3.28 per match)
Biggest home win	Ventspils 8–0 Daugava Rīga
Biggest away win	Daugava Rīga 1–8 Skonto; Blāzma 0–7 Skonto; Olimps/RFS 0–7 Skonto
Highest scoring	Daugava Rīga 2–8 Liepājas Metalurgs; (10 goals)
	← 2008 2010 →

Latvian Higher League 2009 (Latvian: Virslīga) is the 18th season of top-tier football in Latvia. It began on 14 March 2009 with the first round of games and will end on 8 November 2009 with the 36th round of matches. Ventspils are the defending champions.

[edit] Team changes from last season

Olimps Rīga were relegated after finishing the relegation round in last place. They were replaced by First League champions FK Daugava Riga.

Blāzma won the promotion/relegation play-off against Tranzīts Ventspils with 6–1 on aggregate. However, after several mergers and withdrawals Tranzīts were also awarded a place in Virslīga, as the runners-up of First League.

FK Rīga withdrew due to unpaid debts.^[1] They eventually merged with Olimps Rīga and created a new club called Olimps/RFS. The new club plays in Virslīga, what saved Olimps Rīga from relegation.^[2]

On 12 January 2009 Vindava withdrew from Virslīga due to financial reasons.^[3]

FK Jūrmala merged with JFC Kauguri/Multibanka, who is also a merger of JFC Kauguri Jūrmala and FK Multibanka Rīga. The new club includes, beside old FK Jūrmala name, its players and other personnel.

Daugava Daugavpils and Dinaburg also merged and remained under the Dinaburg FC name. It is not yet certain which club's staff will operate the new club. Dinaburg also took Daugava's UEFA Europa League 2009–10 spot.^[4]

[edit] Format change

Due to numerous pre-season team changes, such as club mergers and withdrawals, the format of the league was changed. Since there are only 9 clubs that participate in 2009 Virslīga, every team plays 4 times against every other team, what will make every team playing 32 games. Contrary to the previous season, there isn't Championship and Relegation pool.^[5]

[edit] Overview

Ventspils
Tranzīts

Daugava
Olimps/RFS
Skonto

Location of teams in the Latvian Higher League 2009

Club	Location	Stadium	Capacity	Current manager
Blazma Blāzma	Rēzekne	Sporta Aģentūras Stadions	3,000	Žanis Ārmanis
Daugava Riga Daugava	Riga	Salaspils Stadium	648	Vladimirs Beļajevs
Dinaburg Dinaburg	Daugavpils	Celtnieks Stadium	4,070	Tamaz Pertia
Jurmala FK Jūrmala	Jūrmala	Slokas Stadium	5,000	Vladimirs Babičevs
Metalurgs Metalurgs	Liepāja	Daugava Stadium	5,083	Rüdiger Abramczik
Riga Olimps/RFS	Riga	Daugava Stadium	5,008	Anton Joore
Skonto Skonto	Riga	Skonto Stadium	10,007	Paul Ashworth
Tranzīts Tranzīts	Ventspils	Ventspils 2. pamatskolas stadions	500	Igors Kičigins
Ventspils FK Ventspils	Ventspils	Olimpiskais Stadium	3,085	Nunzio Zavettieri

[edit] League table

P	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification or relegation
1	Liepājas Metalurgs (C)	32	25	4	3	96	23	+73	79	2010–11 UEFA Champions League Second qualifying round
2	FK Ventspils	32	23	5	4	89	21	+68	74	2010–11 UEFA Europa League Second qualifying round
3	Skonto Rīga	32	23	4	5	98	30	+68	73	2010–11 UEFA Europa League First qualifying round
4	FK Jūrmala	32	12	4	16	42	60	−18	40
5	RFS/Olimps	32	11	5	16	53	60	−7	38
6	Blāzma Rēzekne	32	7	5	20	30	71	−41	26
7	Tranzīts Ventspils	32	2	10	20	22	65	−43	16
8	Daugava Rīga (R)	32	3	5	24	26	116	−90	14	Relegation play-offs
9	Dinaburg FC (R)	32	15	4	13	31	39	−8	049¹	Relegation to Latvian First League

Source: Latvian Football Federation (Latvian)
Rules for classification: 1^st points; 2^nd head-to-head points; 3^rd head-to-head goal difference; 4^th overall wins; 5^th goal difference; 6^th goals scored.
¹Dinaburg were excluded from the league due to match-fixing related to betting which involved Dinaburg's president Oļegs Gavrilovs and head coach Tamaz Pertia.^[6]^[7]
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (Q) = Qualified to respective phase of tournament; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
Head-to-Head: used when two or more teams need the head-to-head rules to break a tie.

[edit] Results

[edit] First half of season

Home \ Away¹	BLĀ	DGR	DIN	JŪR	LIE	RFS	SKO	TRA	VEN
Blāzma Rēzekne		4–3	1–2	1–2	0–3	0–1	0–7	1–0	0–3
Daugava Rīga	1–1		0–3	1–1	1–4	1–5	1–7	2–0	1–5
Dinaburg FC	1–0	1–0		1–2	0–3	2–1	1–1	2–0	1–0
FK Jūrmala	3–0	1–1	1–0		1–1	0–1	0–3	4–2	0–3
Liepājas Metalurgs	4–0	1–0	3–1	2–2		5–1	4–0	5–0	2–1
RFS/Olimps	1–1	4–0	1–1	2–3	1–2		1–8	1–1	1–5
Skonto Rīga	4–0	6–0	3–2	3–0	2–1	2–0		1–0	1–3
Tranzīts Ventspils	0–0	3–3	1–1	1–2	0–1	0–0	1–1		0–3
FK Ventspils	5–1	4–2	0–0	3–0	1–1	1–0	2–1	1–1

Source: Latvian Football Federation (Latvian)
¹The home team is listed in the left-hand column.
Colours: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

[edit] Second half of season

Home \ Away¹	BLĀ	DGR	DIN	JŪR	LIE	RFS	SKO	TRA	VEN
Blāzma Rēzekne		4–0	3–0²	0–3	1–3	3–1	0–1	1–0	0–2
Daugava Rīga	0–3		3–0²	0–3	2–8	0–5	0–7	2–1	0–5
Dinaburg FC	1–0	1–0		2–0	1–2	0–3²	0–3²	2–1	0–3²
FK Jūrmala	0–2	3–1	0–1		1–4	1–0	0–5	1–2	0–4
Liepājas Metalurgs	6–0	3–0	3–0²	4–1		3–0	0–1	4–0	1–1
RFS/Olimps	3–2	7–0	0–1	2–0	1–5		0–2	2–1	0–2
Skonto Rīga	4–0	7–0	0–1	3–2	1–6	3–3		4–1	0–0
Tranzīts Ventspils	1–1	1–1	0–2	1–4	1–0	0–2	1–3		0–1
FK Ventspils	5–0	8–0	1–0	4–1	1–2	5–3	0–2	7–0

Source: Latvian Football Federation (Latvian)
¹The home team is listed in the left-hand column.
²Dinaburg were excluded from the league due to match-fixing related to betting which involved Dinaburg's president Oļegs Gavrilovs and head coach Tamaz Pertia. Dinaburg's remaining matches will be awarded to their opponents with 3–0.^[8]^[9]
Colours: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

[edit] Relegation play-offs

Since there are only 9 clubs participating in 2009 Virslīga, no teams will be directly relegated. 9th placed Virslīga team and runners-up of First League will compete in relegation play-offs for one spot in Virslīga 2010. The other spot will be taken by First League champions.^[10] Since one of the teams were excluded from the league, the relegation play-off will be replaced with the direct promotion of the First League team placing second.