© EuroFootball.com
After a Friday with a zero-zero outcome of the 21st NFKA "A Lyga" match in Šiauliai between the local team "Šiauliai" and Kėdainiai's "Nevėžis", the coaches had different opinions about the game.
"I evaluate the match poorly - we should win at home," said "Šiauliai" coach Saulius Vertelis. "I think the main problem was that during the break we played friendly matches with weaker teams from the first league, and here we faced resistance."
"Kėdainiai's "Nevėžis" has always been a team that is difficult to play against if you don't score a quick goal," said the "Šiauliai" coach about the opponents. "We didn't manage to score quickly, and then they defended well and aimed for a result."
"Maybe it's difficult for us to play at home when we absolutely need to win," S. Vertelis said. "This time we didn't succeed. Sometimes it's easier to play away."
When asked to evaluate the performance of the "Šiauliai" newcomers, defender Genadij Ščekotilin who played until the middle of the second half and forward Vasilijus Monakov who appeared on the field in the second half, S. Vertelis said: "Ščekotilinas played well at the beginning, but he needs to get used to the team and improve physically. Monakov played for twenty minutes, it's hard to evaluate, we will see in the future."
It should be noted that the third "Šiauliai" newcomer, Belarusian national team defender Andrej Milevskis, did not play due to injury but should play in the next matches.
Meanwhile, the new "Nevėžis" coach Vitalijus Stankevičius did not make a big deal out of winning one point and stated that the most important thing for him is the team's performance.
"It's nice to win points, but the most important thing is that there is a game," said V. Stankevičius. "It could have been zero points, no big deal, what matters is that there is a game."
"We are a young and promising team," the coach said. "It's great to see the players following the coach's instructions. Points don't come by themselves."
"We still have a lot of shortcomings, we don't intend to hide that, we are underdogs," said the "Nevėžis" coach. "We are still at an amateur stage - some players run onto the field after work. The most important thing is that they fight. Maybe things don't always work out, we lag behind in skill, but the guys are trying."
"Everyone used to think they would easily take three points from "Nevėžis". We will try to play well, and the opinion about our team will change," said V. Stankevičius.
"Today we didn't just defend. We left the initiative to "Šiauliai", analyzed their game: we covered Galiūzas, didn't let him play in the center, managed to close the zones where Afanasenka and Šidlauskas operate. We dealt with that task. In addition, we created several opportunities in the first half, and in the second we had even better chances than "Šiauliai"," said the "Nevėžis" coach.
