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On Saturday, the Baltic champion "Panevėžys" played their first friendly match of the year in Riga and defeated the local "Skonto" team with a score of 2-0.
As reported on the official club website, defender Gediminas Paulauskas scored in the 6th minute and Dominykas Galkevičius scored in the 33rd minute.
After the match, the new head coach of "Ekranas", Saulius Širmelis, praised the players for their fighting spirit and strong desire to win: "I saw beautiful teamwork on the field, I couldn't single out any player. The beginning of the second half was a bit nervous, but later the players adapted to the opponents. It was difficult to compete against Latvia's national team member, almost 2 meters tall Gatis Kalninš, but our men handled it."
In this match, the Slovak Luboš Vojtaško guarded Panevėžys' goal. When asked about the performance of the goalkeeper who arrived for a trial, S. Širmelis said that he saw some uncertain actions from the Slovak in the first part of the match, but he evaluated his performance in the second half much better. "He certainly saved our goal from the opponents' goals several times."
The coach is convinced that there is still a lot of work to be done before the start of the season. Next week, the "Ekranas" team will travel to a training camp in Palanga, and in mid-February to Turkey.
"Ekranas" lineup: Luboš Vojtaško; Laurynas Rimavičius, Linas Klimavičius, Gediminas Paulauskas, Alfredas Skroblas (85 min. Deividas Padaigis); Giedrius Tomkevičius (70 min. Andrius Arlauskas), Dominykas Galkevičius, Dainius Saulėnas (60 min. Žilvinas Banys), Egidijus Varnas, Deimantas Bička (46 min. Vitalijus Kavaliauskas); Povilas Lukšys
