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Lithuanian national team footballers returned home after a marathon of friendly matches night from Thursday to Friday, having secured a draw without spoiling the mood. In the fourth match in ten days, Lithuanians played 1:1 away with the Belarusian team.
In Minsk, before the break, Ramūnas Radavičius put Lithuanians ahead, but the Belarusians equalized the score towards the end of the match.
"We stuck to the tactical plan, but we conceded a goal due to a small mistake. But the result 1:1 is good," said national team coach Csaba Laszlo.
Left-back Radavičius scored following a shot from the right
The Belarusian team, in which naturalized Brazilian Renan Bressan also played, was more active from the start of the match, but Lithuanian defense and goalkeeper dealt with important situations.
In the 3rd minute, goalkeeper Saulius Klevinskas quickly saved Dzimitri Mozolevski's shot. Later, the latter once hit the goalkeeper directly, and once from the side - near the goal. Defenders timely interrupted a couple of opponents' attacks.
In the Lithuanian team, Radavičius threatened the opponent's goal with a long shot. It was he who, in the 43rd minute, put his team ahead. Lukša near the penalty area won the ball and passed it to Radavičius, who with an unusual shot with his right foot sent the ball over goalkeeper Jury Žaunovo.
"I received the pass, stopped, and shot, there was nothing more to do. I managed to score, even though I shot with my right foot, not the usual left. It's nice to score the first goal for the national team," Radavičius said after the match.
Equalized after a corner kick
Just before the break, our team had a chance to double the lead, but after Žaunov deflected the ball to Radavičius, he failed to score into an empty goal - the ball hit the defender.
At the beginning of the second half, Linas Pilibaitis struck above the goal. After the break, the Belarusians controlled the ball more, but did not create anything from it.
However, in the 79th minute, they managed to equalize the score in a simple situation after a corner kick - Stanislav Drahun's header rebounded off the post and into the net - 1:1.
"It was painful to miss the goal. We let the opponent shoot, and our player standing on the line missed the ball. But that's how football goes," defender Vytautas Andriuškevičius said.
This was the second draw of the Lithuanian national team in Belarus in the team's history. Out of the three matches played here so far, our team has lost two.
The cost of one mistake
National team head coach Cs. Laszlo was satisfied with the team's discipline after the match, but at the same time regretted the missed victory.
"We followed the tactical plan throughout the match, but we made one small mistake at the end of the second half and conceded a goal. The result 1:1 is good for us, as it gives us a bit more confidence in our abilities for the future," the coach said. "I am just unhappy that we worked hard on set pieces, all players knew exactly what should happen, but we conceded a goal after a corner kick."
According to Radavičius, despite his goal, the attacking game did not go as desired. "The result was good, but we need to improve the game. We were under a lot of pressure for a large part of the match, we had to defend. It was hard. We couldn't retain the ball, get 'stuck' in front of it. We created few chances."
According to defender Andriuškevičius, the match can be rated as average: "Because we missed a goal at the end. We didn't control the ball much, so a victory would have been a really good result. It's always hard to defend when you play without the ball more, but I think we did it well and the opponents didn't have many chances. We started the match poorly. I was a little nervous myself, but in the second half we had the result and defended more calmly."
Travel and match marathon
Four matches were played in ten days (last week Lithuanians played with Russia, Latvia, and Estonia) - one of the most intense friendly match cycles in the national team's history after the Restoration of Independence. Lithuanians played only two matches in such a short time back in the summer of 2008, when the team was led by Algimantas Liubinskas.
"For young players from our national championship, this was a lot. In these friendly matches, I wanted to test the footballers. We played well against the Russians, then there were two failures. We had problems with the attack because important players left the team," summed up national team coach Cs. Laszlo.
According to Radavičius, two out of the four matches can be considered successful: "The first and last matches were good, but I would rate the performance against Estonia as tragic, there can be no excuses. Today, the guys showed a desire to bounce back and fought as much as they could."
Young defender Vytautas Andriuškevičius, who played three matches, said it was a bit disappointing that they couldn't end the match cycle with a victory: "We started well against Russia, then followed a painful loss to Latvia, we played a bit better against Estonia. I wanted to win and finish everything on a more positive note."
The next friendly matches for our national team are awaiting on August 15 in Macedonia. This will be the final rehearsal before the 2014 World Cup qualifying matches starting in the fall - at home against Slovakia on September 7 and away to Greece on September 11.
Match statistics
Belarus - Lithuania 1:1 (0:1)
Minsk "Dinamo" Stadium
Referee - Igor Satchi (Moldova)
Goals: 79 min. Stanislav Drahun (Belarus), 43 min. Ramūnas Radavičius (Lithuania)
Lithuania: Saulius Klevinskas, Vytautas Andriuškevičius, Tomas Mikuckis, Tadas Kijanskas, Valdemar Borovskij (57 min. Georgas Freidgeimas), Marius Papšys (69 min. Egidijus Vaitkūnas), Mindaugas Panka, Linas Pilibaitis (83 min. Gediminas Vičius), Vytautas Lukša (90+4 min. Algis Jankauskas), Ramūnas Radavičius (77 min. Mantas Kuklys), Andrius Velička (87 min. Deivydas Matulevičius).
