Baltic Cup

Baltic Cup is an international biennial competition that pits Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia national teams against one another. Established in 1928, it is one of the oldest national teams football tournaments in Europe (after the British Home Championship) and the oldest still played.

While the format and frequency of the competition varied over the years, since 2008 the cup in contested once every two years and includes one guest nation in order to facilitate a knockout format. 

Much like the lands that it represents, the Baltic Cup has a long and turbulent history that includes plenty of conflict and controversy. The origins of the Cup lie in a series of international friendliest won by Estonia against Latvia, Poland, Lithuania and Finland. Having done so, Estonians declared themselves the Baltic Champions, providing impetus for a formal competition to be established.

One of the goals of the Baltic Cup was to promote friendship and cooperation between the recently independent Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. However, relations between the three young republics back then were not what they are now, and plenty of hostility, petty rivalry and controversy accompanied the pre-WW2 editions of the Cup.

Officially, the Baltic Cup seized to be contested once the Soviet occupation of the three nations began (1940-1990), although some historians trace continuity throughout the occupation years in the form of various regional football competitions that partially resemble the original Baltic Cup. For it’s part, the Soviet Union did not sanction any events or symbols that bore reminder of independent Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia. With occupation, the original Baltic Cup trophy was also lost, reportedly taken to Moscow never to be seen again.

Baltic Cup was officially reinstated in 1991, now on much friendlier terms. A replica trophy was created by Indulis Urbāns from photographs and a youth and women’s editions were launched in 2008 and 1996 respectively. 

Latvia holds the overall record with 13 trophies, followed by Lithuania with 10, Estonia with five and Iceland with one.