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Last Tuesday, Lithuania's national football team started a series of friendly matches with Russia, which will end today in the Belarusian capital Minsk, where they will meet the local national team.
"We are better prepared than before the Baltic Cup tournament in Estonia," said the national team's head coach Csaba Laszlo.
Want to stabilize the game
Lithuanian football players traveled to Minsk on Wednesday morning by bus from Vilnius and relatively quickly, reached their travel destination in four hours.
"We are better prepared than before the Baltic Cup tournament because we had a little more time, the team will be fresher. I feel that these matches should be more positive than the last two," said the national team's strategist Csaba Laszlo. "In the last three matches, we played with different line-ups. Now we need to stabilize our game. I am pleased that after three matches, we found young players who give hope for the future."
Forward Andrius Velička said the team rested a bit on Monday, but some fatigue after three consecutive matches is inevitable.
"But it's hard to say if it will affect us. Maybe it will be beneficial, as we are fired up," said Velička. "We will try to perform better than in the Baltic Cup tournament. All the men want to prove that the previous games were just a coincidence. The opponents, on the other hand, want to win in front of their own fans, they have a new coach, so they will fight for a place in the national team."
Csaba Laszlo mentioned that this Lithuanian national team will be similar to the one that played against Russia, but due to a few losses, some changes in the team's composition are inevitable.
"Again, I will give a chance to young players like Andriuškevičius, Borovskis. We don't have many options in the front. Radavičius, Velička, as well as Panka, we will also test Lukšas. In the depleted defensive line, he will be useful on the side. It is also a chance for him to show his talent. I want to see players who run onto the field fight for victory," said the coach.
Big investments in sports
The match will take place today at the national "Dinamo" stadium, which accommodates 40,000 spectators. Tickets for the match cost from 10 to 20 thousand rubles. However, the price is impressive only visually - converted to our currency, it would be approximately from 3.3 to 6.6 euros.
Due to rain, the Minsk "Dinamo" stadium is protected for the match, so both teams trained at the training base near the headquarters of the Belarusian Football Federation.
The training conditions and the abundance of fields - there were up to 20 fields here - left a big impression on the whole team and the national team coach Csaba Laszlo. "When they told me that we would train on field no. 16, I thought they were joking," the coach smiled. "I heard that this year, the "Dinamo" stadium will also be reconstructed."
According to the specialist, Lithuania could learn from Belarus about the approach and attention to sports. "Sports here receive a lot of attention and investment. Not only football, but also ice hockey, athletics, basketball, and other sports," the Hungarian said. "I saw a lot of people doing sports. All football fields were full of young people, children. I hope that there will be more opportunities for sports in Lithuania. Sports helps to integrate into society."
The match will start at 19:00. The live broadcast of the match is planned on the "Lietuvos Rytas" television channel.
