BERLIN — FC Ventspils have begun the Europa group stage with a valuable one-all draw against Hertha Berlin in the German capital.

Ventspils have proven that they are to be taken seriously with Thursday’s invaluable draw in Berlin. While the bookies wrote Ventspils off, the Latvians proved that their near miss at qualifying for the Champions League group stage was no fluke.

Having shown indifferent form over the past month, Ventspils finally got it together when it mattered, welcoming the return of players from both the senior and national Under-21 teams.

Both teams looked unsettled during the opening stages with neither team having any real chances in the first half-hour.

Hertha Berlin opened scoring in the 34th minute when Łukasz Piszczek was on hand to pick up on a blocked shot from Ventspils’ goalie Pavel Chasnovski.

However, Ventspils were not to roll over, with Latvian under-21 player Edgars Gauračs continuing his goal-scoring form he had shown for the national team, putting one past Hertha goalie Jaroslav Drobný from outside of the box, three minutes into the second half. Ventspils seemed a lot more settled following the equalizer and barely looked threatened for the remainder of the game.

The Latvians were jubilant following the game, but Hertha know that they will have to lift their game if they are to assert themselves as one of Group D’s leaders.

Ventspils will next meet Dutch side Heerenveen at home on Oct. 1. Henrenveen got off to the worst possible start, going down 3-2 to visiting Portuguese side sporting.