E. Jankauskas – before the match with Romania: 'We need to look for resources'

2024-09-08 19:40 © lff.lt

The Lithuanian national team will face the Romanian team on Monday evening in the second match of the UEFA Nations League.

The match will start on Monday at 21:45, and it will be broadcast live on the LRT PLIUS channel and the LRT.lt portal.

Before the match, Lithuania’s national team coach Edgaras Jankauskas participated in an official press conference, where he shared his thoughts on the match played on Friday against Cyprus and the upcoming duel on Monday.

"I want to see a team that wants to play football with the ball. We know we will be playing against a powerful team that plays good football and recently had a successful performance at the European Championship.

They have many capable players, enjoy long shots, which is somewhat their signature mark, scoring impressive goals. They have strong central defenders, solid forwards, and fast players on the flanks, so we need to be very attentive at our own goal, and when we have the ball, we must want to play.

These principles worked in the last match, so we should stick to them. We have our agreements, principles, and style; we know when we need to do what.

In the first match, they achieved victory and have a bit more positivity, while we need to look for resources because playing against such a team means the match will be intense, and we physically need to be in our best condition,” said the Lithuanian national team coach.

Romania unexpectedly changed their head coach after the last European Championship; the legendary national specialist Mircea Lucescu returned to this position after many years.

As joked by the head coach of the Lithuanian team, such changes somewhat confused the work of the coaching staff.

"They changed the coach, slightly disrupted our analysts’ work, but there aren’t any huge changes in their game; the coach is really wise not to make drastic changes. There have been very few changes in the player composition, and the style remains the same, very similar to how it was in the European Championship.

This is a legendary figure in football globally, having worked with many famous teams, so it will be a great honor to face his coached team,” E. Jankauskas shared his thoughts.

Before the match, Romanian journalists claimed that the "Steaua" stadium, which can hold 32 thousand spectators and will almost be full tomorrow, is in extremely poor condition.

Having tested the pitch before the press conference, E. Jankauskas, when asked if the quality of the pitch is truly poor, smiled.

"Recently, we saw even worse pitches (smiles – editor). A week ago, Rokas Lekiatas played here and said the pitch was very bad, that there was almost no grass.

Now there is some grass, it may still be a bit weak, but it is recovering. The pitch itself is level, but the grass is very fluffy. In this case, there’s probably no other option; we will have to play here,” the coach smiled.