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The Lithuanian national football team will try to avoid the mistakes that the Latvian team made in the friendly matches last month, and will strive for victory in Tuesday's UEFA EURO 2012 match against the Czech Republic.
Three defenders are nursing injuries.
The Lithuanian national team delegation arrived in the Czech Republic on Sunday evening, and will face off against the Czech team on Tuesday. The city of Olomouc, with just 100 thousand inhabitants, is buzzing with excitement ahead of the match: almost 12 thousand seats at the "Andruv" stadium - excluding those reserved for Lithuanians - were booked a week ago. According to the Czechs, if there were another 12 thousand tickets available, they would likely have been sold as well.
The team's strategist Raimondas Žutautas said after Sunday's practice that there wasn't much time to recover from Friday's match against Scotland and the team has not been without minor injuries.
"It's unclear whether Ramūnas Radavičius will be able to play, or if Andrius Skerla will recover in time for the match. Marius Žaliūkas is also struggling. However, there is still time before the match. We have 3-4 players who can replace the injured ones. We do not plan any major changes in the team and will decide on the final lineup after Monday's evening practice," said the coach.
Avoiding Latvian mistakes.
According to him, the Czech national team plays fast, technical attacking football, has clear leaders - goalkeeper Petr Čech from London's "Chelsea" and midfielder Tomáš Rosický from London's "Arsenal," and other players also compete in strong European clubs.
"We watched the Czech national team play in friendly matches against Latvia, in which our neighbors lost 1-4. All successful Czech attacks were made after Latvian mistakes. We need to avoid such mistakes and then we can fight for the result. Winning would be very difficult, but possible," said R. Žutautas.
Looking at the tournament's dynamics, the coach said that it's important not to lose to direct competitors. "Since the Scots and Czechs are such teams, we must prevent them from winning. However, it's difficult to decide anything after just one match. Everything in this group will be decided next spring and fall."
Not playing for a draw.
Defender Marius Stankevičius said that Tuesday's match against the Czech Republic will be a different kind of battle compared to the Friday match against the Scots: "The match with Scotland wasn't the most beautiful, there was a lot of fighting and emotions. I hope that football against the Czechs will be different. In video analysis, we saw that the Czech national team tries harder to play with the ball, controls it well, makes many short passes."
According to M. Stankevičius, the team is not only thinking about how to block Czech leader T. Rosický: "One player cannot represent the whole team. It's said that one is not an army on the field. T. Rosický is a good player, but the whole team plays. We need to prepare to fight against them. We will try to keep the ball more and control the game."
Asked if a draw would be a positive result, the "Valencia" club player assured that the team will not settle for that. "Of course, it's better than losing. However, we won't take to the field to play for a draw. Tomorrow, as always, I think we will go out to score goals, fight for a win and three points. The team is ready and will aim for a better result than in Kaunas."
The match between the Czech and Lithuanian national teams in Olomouc will take place on September 7, starting at 9:15 PM Lithuanian time. The match will be broadcast live on "Lietuvos Rytas" television.
