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In Saturday's 12th round of matches in the A League in Vilnius against Visaginas "Interas," the team will have to play without their captain Deivydas Lunskis. He suffered an injury to his ankle ligaments during training, so the defender will not be able to play for about a month.
The 29-year-old defender has been an indisputable pillar of the defense for "Šiauliai" this season - he played in all 12 matches of this season's A League and was substituted in some of them at the end of the second half.
In addition to D. Lunskis, several defenders on the team are also injured - Andrejus Oriol, Donatas Strockis, and it is unclear if David Arlauskis will recover fully after his injury.
The "Šiauliai" defense has significantly weakened even more because a few weeks ago, for undisclosed reasons, the team's captain and defender Egidijus Žukauskas left the club by mutual agreement.
These will be the second match between the teams this year, with the first one ending in a 4-1 victory for the team from Šiauliai. In that match, Ukrainian Viktoras Raskovas scored 3 goals, while young Vaidas Viktoravičius scored one. "Interas" is currently in last place in the tournament table. Visaginas' team has 5 points, and their first victory was in the last round against "Šilutė."
The team's coach Rytis Tavoras said he does not expect the match to be easy: "Interas" is not an easy opponent, as they showed by defeating "Šilutė" 3-0, a team we struggled to beat. This will be a very important match for "Interas," as a victory would bring them closer in the tournament standings. The opponents have fast attackers, especially highlighting Nerijus Astrauskas, so the main goal will be not to concede a goal."
