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On May 21, a Baltic Cup tournament will take place in Lithuania, where traditionally the national and youth teams of the three Baltic countries play. Unfortunately, this time only Lithuania and Latvia will compete, as Estonia refused to play against its neighbors. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the LFF announced that the previously scheduled time and location of the matches had changed.
The Estonian Football Federation sent an official letter stating that they will not participate in this year's Baltic Cup solely because in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, they were in the same group as the Latvian team.
This friendly tournament will be the 20th anniversary. The first Baltic States tournament took place back in 1928 and used to be held annually before the decision was made in 1998 to hold it every two years.
The tournament took place seven times in Lithuania and Latvia, and four times in Estonia. The last Baltic Cup matches took place two years ago in Estonia, where the Latvians became the winners for the second consecutive time.
The Lithuanian national team will gather for training camp on May 19 in Kaunas, and will have two training sessions that day, with both teams training once in the evening after the Latvian team arrives in Kaunas the next day.
Unlike previously announced, the match between both countries' youth teams will be played not in Marijampolė, but at the Vilnius "Vėtra" stadium, starting at 12 p.m. The advanced national teams match will take place on the same day at the S.Darius and S.Girėnas stadium in Kaunas. The match will be broadcast live on Tango TV and later on TV3, starting at 4:30 p.m. The referees' brigade for the match is from Poland.
Since the Baltic Cup tournament is not included in the FIFA friendly matches schedule, the head coach of the national teams, Algimantas Liubinskas, had to include only players who play in Lithuania in the team lineup. The team list consists mostly of eight players from "Kaunas", as well as four from "Ekranas", three from "Sūduva", two from "Žalgiris", and one each from "Vėtra", "Šiauliai", "Atlantas", "Vilnius", and "Šilutė".
Lithuanian national team lineup for the match against Latvia:
Goalkeepers 1. Vaidotas Žutautas ("Šiauliai") 2. Gytis Padimanskas ("Sūduva")
Defenders 3. Darius Regelskis ("Kaunas") 4. Irmantas Zelmikas ("Kaunas") 5. Tadas Gražiūnas ("Žalgiris") 6. Gediminas Paulauskas ("Ekranas") 7. Tomas Kančelskis ("Kaunas") 8. Tadas Papečkys ("Kaunas") 9. Arūnas Klimavičius ("Ekranas")
Midfielders 10. Tomas Tamošauskas ("Kaunas") 11. Aurimas Kučys ("Ekranas") 12. Darius Maciulevičius ("Sūduva") 13. Igoris Morinas ("Žalgiris") 14. Eimantas Poderis ("Kaunas") 15. Aidas Preikšaitis ("Vėtra")
Forwards 16. Tomas Radzinevičius ("Sūduva") 17. Aivaras Laurišas ("Atlantas") 18. Andrius Velička ("Kaunas") 19. Ričardas Beniušis ("Kaunas") 20. Nerijus Astrauskas ("Vilnius") 21. Povilas Lukšys ("Ekranas") 22. Gvidas Juška ("Šilutė")
