Latvia U17

Latvia's under-17 side goes into the 2027 UEFA European Under-17 Championship as hosts, a first appearance at that level, and enters the year off the back of a Riga Cup win in February 2026. The current squad, captained by Reinis Flaksis under head coach Aleksandrs Basovs, has shown it can grind out results as much as produce them: wins over North Macedonia and Azerbaijan by 2:0 sat alongside a 1:2 reverse to the same Macedonian side, and a penalty shootout victory over Finland in the UEFA Development Tournament suggested a group that keeps its head when a game goes to spot-kicks.

The team traces back to Latvia's return to international football after independence, entering UEFA in 1992 and playing its first fixture, against Russia's under-16s, on 18 September 1993. It has never reached a FIFA Under-17 World Cup, but the Under-17 Baltic Cup has become something close to a private competition: nine titles since 2008, most recently in 2025 and 2026, against the same regional rivals year after year.

Vitālijs Maksimenko holds the appearance record for the team, 17 caps and nine goals.

There is no fixed home ground in the way senior sides have one. Qualifiers move between Latvian cities, including Ogre, but Riga's Daugava Stadium, with its 10,461 capacity, is where the youth and women's teams are based while Skonto Stadium is kept for the men. The players wear maroon and white, the colours behind the nickname 11 Wolves, and it is in that stadium, in that city, that the 2027 finals will find their host.