© EuroFootball.com
The Lithuanian national football team will warm up for the EURO 2012 qualifying match against Spain at the end of March with a match against the Polish team, which will visit our country for the first time. The coaches also plan to evaluate the team's candidates by playing a match against the youth national team.
Practice before the match against the Spaniards
A friendly match between the Lithuanian and Polish teams will take place in Kaunas on March 25, starting at 9:30 pm.
After four days, on March 29, the Lithuanians will host the World and European champions, the Spanish footballers, in the EURO 2012 qualifying match.
According to the head coach of the national team, Raimondas Žutautas, these matches will be beneficial in terms of practice.
"Many national team members represent clubs that are preparing for the season. Therefore, additional matches will be good practice, and also an opportunity to assess the players' fitness during a longer training camp," said the coach.
With the Poles - for the first time in Lithuania
Until now, the national teams of both countries have met eight times, but every time the matches were held either in Poland or in one of the southern European countries. This time, the match in Lithuania was proposed by representatives of the Polish Football Federation.
"They probably wanted revenge on our field for 2006," joked Robertas Tautkus, director of the LFF national teams department. "Back then, we defeated the Poles 1-0 as visitors and spoiled the mood before the World Cup. We hope that the first match with our neighbors in Lithuania will be interesting for the viewers."
Good news for the owners of Lithuanian national team season tickets for the EURO 2012 qualifying cycle - they will be able to attend the friendly match against Poland for free.
National team candidates and youth will play
In February, there are no plans for other international matches, but on February 9, a friendly match between the national "B" team and the youth (U-21) team preparing for the new qualifying cycle is planned at the Vilnius "Sportima" arena.
The national team strategist R. Žutautas will test the team's reserve for the second time - last year, the candidates trained together with the main team before the friendly match in Ukraine.
"This time we will focus on evaluating potential national team candidates from a long-term perspective. We will select about 20-22 players from various A League clubs, and perhaps players from Latvian teams will also come," said R. Žutautas.
For the U-21 national team, these matches will be friendly matches before the 2013 European U-21 Championship qualification. The Lithuanian youth team will find out their opponents after the draw at the beginning of February.
