© EuroFootball.com
After the defeat in the Lithuanian Football Federation Cup semi-final replay matches, the "Žalgiris" players were happy with the favorable result, but not with the game.
After the Lithuanian Football Federation Cup semi-final replay matches in Marijampolė, the head coach of VMFD "Žalgiris" was happy that they managed to reach the final even without demonstrating good gameplay.
"Sūduva" played on their field. It is difficult to beat the Marijampolė team for any opponent. We also lost, but this victory means nothing to "Sūduva" because we are advancing to the next stage. Today we did not show a very good game, but it was enough to achieve a positive result and reach the LFF Cup final. Hopefully, we will play better in the final than today," said Damiras Petravičius.
Mantas Kuklys, who scored the equalizing goal, admitted that the Žalgiris players retreated to defense after a long break. "The match was tough as we expected. We were briefly disturbed after conceding a goal, but quickly recovered and equalized the result. In the second half, we changed our game plan. We focused mainly on defense. We wanted to maintain our lead. At the end of the match, we conceded a goal, making it harder to finish the game. Losing is not pleasant, but I am satisfied with the positive result achieved.
Andrius Skerla, who played his first match in the VMFD "Žalgiris" team, said that the players were thinking about the overall performance of the semi-final, not just the result of the match. "Today, it was most important for us to achieve a positive outcome, not just the result of the match. We scored the equalizing goal, so we paid more attention to defense than offense.
"Sūduva's" head coach Virginijus Liubšys said after the match that his team deserved to play in the final. "We played better and should have been in the final. We scored an early goal and created several good chances, but failed to score until the last minutes of the match. Their equalizing goal in the middle of the first half made our situation much more difficult. Although we did not achieve our goal, I want to thank the team for their determination. This time we lacked sports luck. I wish "Žalgiris" good luck in the final," said Virginijus Liubšys.
Assistant coach Rafaelis Ledesma also added, "I think we played better than the opponents. Perhaps at certain moments, we were not focused enough, as we did not make use of many opportunities. We were just one goal short of reaching the next stage. Now we need to focus on the main championship battles," said the Brazilian who scored the first goal of the match.
