Baltic Power Rankings after GW3: both Liepāja clubs climb while Paide trip up in Narva

With the final Game Week before the international break completed, there has been some interesting movement in the power rankings – some expected, other less so. Indeed, with the exception of Top 5 (RFS, Riga, Žalgiris, Flora and Levadia), N11 (Sūduva), N16 (Metta) and N30 (Harju), every other club has moved up or down in the rankings since the opening of the season.

GW3 brought some bad news for FA Šiauliai and Nõmme Kalju, who tumbled out of the Top 20 as Banga and Džiugas claimed their places. Paide dropped significantly – three positions – to 9th on the back of their loss to Narva Trans.

In Latvia, FK Grobiņa climbed to 13th despite their 4-1 loss in the Liepāja derby. FK Liepāja, in turn, made it to Top 6 on the back of a strong start to the season. Their next opponents after the international break are the Baltic powerhouse and ‘white whale’ of Liepāja club owner – FC RFS. A win would see Liepāja gain a whopping 21 coefficient points but this won’t be easy as last time Liepāja won RFS was in November 2020, before the Latvian Champions even claimed their first national gold.

Riteriai‘s stubborn performances in A Lyga finally paid off as they gained a spot, displacing Kuressaare. Struggling Tallinna Kalev, who remain the only team in the Baltics without any league points, are next in their sights, a single coefficient point ahead. Harju remain last despite winning 2 out of 3 games this season as they continue to build their coefficient but can expect to climb the rankings already after GW4, should they get a result against Narva after the international break.

Clubs will play friendlies to keep their form and, albeit most of these are yet to be announced, it can be expected that we will see some inter-Baltic games that may affect power rankings also during the international break.