„How much can you be losers?“, „Bums, wait for the national team“, „It still doesn't change anything“ and similar chants echoed at the LFF stadium. To remember the last matches of the Lithuanian national team, where so much anger was poured out, one would have to dig deep into the archives.
Yesterday we saw, perhaps, the strangest victory in our football history. A victory which, unlike others, did not bring any joy at all. On the contrary, probably in the mind of more than one person was the thought that playing to a draw and making a disgrace in front of the whole of Europe is now not the worst option.
Especially because after losing to Estonia, in terms of the tournament table, everything is already lost. Maybe a disgraceful draw against San Marino would be too much even for Igor Pankratjev and he would resign?
However, the Lithuanian national team, made up of 23 professional footballers, still managed to expand the victory against bartenders, factory workers, salespeople, and bankers' national team in extra time.
Lukas Spalvis played offended and started pouring bile on the national team's loyal fans, as if with this goal he had expanded the victory against Slovenia or another similar level national team. As if the fans were some inadequate beings, lacking even the slightest clue about football and yesterday's opponents.
But this was a tiny gesture playing against San Marino. Not in vain before almost every match of this national team, the works of the footballers playing there are accentuated - to emphasize that it is just an amateur team. And year after year, they stand to fight against their professional counterparts, often those professionals are of the highest level, and against them, San Marino concedes 6, 7, or even 8 goals.
This gesture of L. Spalvis made us think - is there still any sense of shame and responsibility in Lithuanian football?
One of the three options - Lithuanian footballers actually thought that 2-1 against San Marino was good, and the fans' anger towards them is unreasonable.
The second option - maybe they simply do not understand what kind of football entity San Marino is and that it is a team made up of amateurs, that they should score at least 2-3 dry goals at home to be able to sleep peacefully in the evening? Perhaps they do not know the fact that Lithuania became the first national team in 14 years to concede a goal at home to San Marino?
Finally - maybe they simply do not care about the fans? Perhaps our football standards in 2015 are so pitiful that expanding the victory against San Marino bartenders in extra time is a positive result?
Yesterday, after the match, not a single player dared to come to the fan stands. This is arrogance at the highest level, a lack of adequacy, and disrespect for the people who support the national team at events, from Estonia to San Marino, and who paid money to see the complete football circus.
Take an example from Mats Hummels and apologize for the recent week's disaster. Nobody will blame you, but will remember you as responsible people with a sense of shame.
Remember that the season ticket for matches against Switzerland, San Marino, and England cost 80 euros (55 in the stands behind the goal), i.e. a quarter of the average monthly salary in Lithuania.
And all that the fans will see for 80 euros is defeat against the Swiss, a hard-fought victory against San Marino, and likely defeat against the English.
Of course, the price is also influenced by the natural fan attraction towards the Swiss and English national teams, but again we come back to the same question - do we still have such low standards and live in the shadow of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics world, where the main attraction was just to see the stars of the US "Dream Team" before the match knowing that they would beat us by 40-50 points?
However, it is obvious that the players are not the main problem here. Let us partially rehabilitate them - perhaps L. Spalvis's gesture to the fans was done simply out of anger and inertia, and Lithuanian footballers understand how terrible yesterday was. And waking up in the morning, cooling down the emotions, evaluating their performance, result, and missed goal, they might even be able to put it in a certain context.
There is one person who probably does not understand anything, and that is I. Pankratjevas.
As always, he did not hear the angry chants or calls to resign. But why resign? “Everything is fine, we won,“ - Pankas ponders in his mind.
Our standards are just to look at the English stars and, if successful, win against San Marino and overtake them in the group.
As always, after the match, I. Pankratjevas stared at irrelevant statistics.
“Look, we had 9 shots on goal, created chances but couldn't score,“.
However, a shot and a chance for a goal are not the same concepts. There may have been shots, but chances, knowing that the opponent is San Marino, were sadly very few. Apart from the goal, the only memorable thing was Fiodor Chernych's shot straight at the goalkeeper.
The coach did not have the shame to admit that what happened yesterday at the LFF stadium was terrible. The match was of the same series as the losses 0-4 to Georgia and 1-6 to Hungary. An evening that we will remember after 20 years as the lowest point in this decade's football history.
Well, unless somehow in the remaining 5 years we manage to fall even lower.
Igor, be a good guy, resign. And take Kvedaras with you.
Paulius Viluckas
