A. Velička: "The most important thing for boys is to believe they can play with anyone

2024-05-29 11:25

The Lithuanian U16 boys' national team had an extraordinary opportunity to meet their French peers in friendly matches twice at the legendary French "Clairefontaine" base.

In the first match, the Lithuanians took the lead twice, but had to admit their opponents' superiority 2:3 in extra time, and in the second match, the Lithuanians lost to the opponents 1:3.

Summing up the experience, national team coach Andrius Velička stated that the result was not the main focus of the camp.

"It was truly an extraordinary opportunity to receive an invitation to play with France, which doesn't happen every day. We wanted to thank the federation for making it happen and playing two matches with a strong team.

Speaking of the matches themselves, the result was not the most important thing. We definitely did not give up, as shown by the statistics of both matches. We wanted the players to believe that they can play against anyone, and I think we succeeded. The game was good, the boys' attitude was very appropriate, so the experience can be evaluated positively," the coach said.

However, according to him, some decisions made by the referees could have raised questions.

"Perhaps we wouldn't want to talk much about the refereeing, but once again the idea is confirmed that playing such matches away is always much harder – two penalties were awarded against us, which, I don't know how to describe, but are questionable. However, the result, as I mentioned, was not the essential thing for us," the specialist explained.

In the first game, the Lithuanians took the lead against the French twice, but couldn't maintain the advantage. A. Velička further elaborated the idea that players might have doubted having the ability to beat such a team.

"There really wasn't such a thought. Even when the French equalized for the first time, we quickly took the lead again, but they simply scored two goals at the end. But, as I said, the boys saw that they can play against any opponent as equals, and that was the main focus of the camp.

Perhaps they felt that the French were slightly faster, had a slightly better first touch, but these are details that the boys needed to see and that we can work on now," the former footballer explained.

The national team played the matches at the legendary French "Clairefontaine" base, where all the country's national teams train and where many legendary French footballers were raised. According to A. Velička, the conditions were excellent.

"The conditions were truly fantastic. We didn't live right at that base, we lived in a slightly different place, but the pitch for the match... It seemed even better than some of our artificial turf pitches. There are separate bases for men, youth national teams, of course, on some days the national team of France also gathers there, preparing for the European Championship. We definitely need to step up a bit more," the coach concluded.