The biggest hope for Lithuanian football, Lukas Spalvis, can currently only enjoy playing football from the sidelines. The 22-year-old Lithuanian national team striker arrived at Lisbon's "Sporting" in the summer, but his new career began not as planned - he suffered an injury and has been undergoing rehabilitation for over half a year. The most visited football news portal in the country, EuroFootball.com, interviewed the striker, who agreed to answer questions about life in Portugal, the environment surrounding him, and the Lithuanian national team. - Lukas, how is life in Portugal? Have you already adapted to the new life conditions? - Life here is really great. At first, it was very hard to adapt to the hot weather, especially during training. But after three months, I can only say positive things about Portugal. Lisbon is very beautiful, and life here is not bad at all. - Unfortunately, your career in Portugal started very unsuccessfully - you suffered a serious injury. Is the rehabilitation going according to plan? - The injury at the beginning of the season was definitely not the best thing that happened here. But I'm not the kind of person to give up. Rehabilitation is going as planned, and I hope to return to the field as soon as possible. I still have to prove why I came to this club. - A new club and a new country. Is joining Sporting Lisbon something you've been waiting for your whole life? - As I said, the country and the city are amazing. The club itself is one of the biggest in Europe. I knew all of this before coming here. But what surprised me the most is the atmosphere and the fans in our stadium. It's something incredible. Even though I'm injured now, I'm very happy to have joined the Sporting family! - Three European champions - Adrien Silva, Rui Patricio, and William Carvalho - play in the same team with you. Have you had the chance to talk to them and ask about their feelings when winning one of the most important trophies in the Old Continent? - It's very nice to be in the same team with European champions. It speaks volumes about the level of our club and the players on the team. But what is especially enjoyable is that they are just ordinary people, not making a big deal out of such an important victory with the Portuguese national team. - It must be very painful when the team travels to the "Santiago Bernabeu" stadium to play against the UEFA Champions League winners Real Madrid, and you cannot do it due to injury. - It was indeed sad when I couldn't go with the team to Madrid. Maybe I had the opportunity to step onto the Santiago Bernabeu pitch, but that's life. Such things give me even more motivation to not give up and maybe play against Real next time. The match against them just showed how capable our club is. My desire is one - to recover as soon as possible and fight for the chance to play for the Sporting team. - There is no doubt that you watched the Lithuanian national team match against Slovenia. What can you say about the game - did we deserve to win? - I wasn't surprised by the result. I was very disappointed that the guys couldn't fight for three points. Maybe we don't have the best players, but we have a team that fights for every inch of the field. I know that under coach Edgaras Jankauskas, we started to believe more in our strengths. This is the most important thing in football. If you don't have that - achieving something is particularly difficult. - The Lithuanian national team has two more 2018 World Cup qualifying matches ahead. What are our team's chances against Scotland and Malta? - Two tough matches are ahead, but I'm sure the team is 100% prepared and will fight for every possible point. I believe that the men will give a good fight against both Scotland and the Maltese footballers. I will support the team. I hope that people will do the same!
Aivaras Katutis, eurofootball.lt
