Who is the only Latvian-born player to have appeared for Watford?!

Yahoo

21-05-2025

With the arrival at Vicarage Road of Hector Kyprianou, Watford will soon have their first full Cyprus international – and with overseas players now so commonplace in England, it means the club's yellow shirt has been worn by representatives from every corner of the globe.
For instance, could you name the only Latvian-born player to play for Watford? He made five appearances and scored on his full debut – and it occurred in this century. Answer at the end of the article . . .
The eagle-eyed Hornets fans may have looked at websites containing lists of international players meticulously compiled by the late and esteemed Trefor Williams, and seen that Tom Williams is listed as having had one Cyprus cap while at Watford.
However, Williams was never actually on the books at Vicarage Road. He played one half of a pre-season friendly against Wealdstone at Harefield United in 2007 – a game Watford won 4-0 with Williams playing alongside such luminaries as Cedric Avinel, Johan Cavalli and Steve Kabba.
So, as soon as Kyprianou earns his next cap he will become the first to play for Cyprus while at Watford – and with games against Bulgaria and Romania next month, that could happen quickly.
The new midfielder was born in London, though, and joins a surprisingly lengthy list of current Watford players who have earned international honours for a country other than the one where they were born.
Imran Louza was born in France and was capped by their Under-21s for instance, but now plays full international football for Morocco.
Rocco Vata was born in Scotland but earned his first full cap for the Republic of Ireland last season, while Tom Dele-Bashiru was born in Manchester and played for England Under-16s but has since been capped by Nigeria at Under-20 and Under-23 level.
And there is another Cyprus international at the club: London-born goalkeeper Gabriel Ortelli recently earned his first Under-21s cap.
When it comes to country of birth, then the list of nations from which players have come to represent Watford is a long one.
Players born in more than 70 different countries have featured for the Hornets in a competitive first-team game.
As you might expect, players born in England lead the way, with more than 800 in total, followed by Scotland and Wales.
Defender Francisco Sierralta has the honour of being Watford's only first-team player to have been born in Chile, and the same badge can be worn by Giorgi Chakvetadze for Georgia, and Mamadou Doumbia for Mali.
Digging through the place of birth of Watford players throws up a few oddities – who knew Jose Holebas was born in Aschaffenburg, Germany?!
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Many countries have only produced one Hornet: Albania (Rey Manaj), Ghana (Prince Buaben), Peru (Andre Carillo) and Slovakia (Juraj Kucka) among them.
But, going back to the question at the start of the answer – did you know the only Latvian-born Watford player?
Well done (especially if you didn't have to resort to the internet etc) if you came up with Aleksandrs Cauna.
A former Chelsea trialist, he worked with Brendan Rodgers at Stamford Bridge who then brought him to Vicarage Road on loan during the 2008/09 season.
Cauna made his debut as a substitute away at Plymouth, and then scored a volley on his full debut in a 2-2 draw with Southampton at Vicarage Road on April 7, 2009.
He returned to his parent club, Skonto Riga, after five appearances for Watford, and went on to earn 45 caps for Latvia before retiring from the game in 2020.
Additional stats from Jon Sinclair's WFC database at https://wfc.net/Database