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On Thursday, July 5, the football players of Marijampolė's "Sūduva" will start their fight in the UEFA Europa League tournament. The opponent in the first stage of the tournament is Daugavpils "Daugava". Fksuduva.lt spoke about the upcoming match with the team's head coach Virgijus Liubšys and one of the team's players Rafael Ledesma.
R. Ledesma said he expects a tough fight, and the team is more focused than when preparing for the "General Financing A League" matches: "We are working hard to prepare for these matches. We all understand that a tough battle awaits. I really hope we will achieve a good result in the first and second matches. The team is more focused than before the A League matches, because this is a higher level tournament with better teams and players. However, we are prepared, we have a good team. We can improve our game and achieve good results."
In Brazils opinion, the loss to the "Ekran" team was very painful, but it is already forgotten: "The loss to "Ekran" was painful because, after equalizing the 0-2 score, A.Velička snatched victory for his team in the last minutes of the match. No one likes to lose, but in my opinion, now all players have already forgotten the match with "Ekran" and are properly prepared for the UEFA Europa League match."
The "Sūduva" legionnaire did not dare to speak much and evaluate the Daugavpils "Daugava" team: "It's hard to say anything about the "Daugava" team. I haven't played friendly matches against this team. We watched a few videos, but they can play differently than what is shown there. If this team plays in the UEFA Europa League, it means they are a good team."
More on the Daugavpils club could be said by V. Liubšys: "Daugava" is a well-balanced team of experienced players. This season they look great. Until the fateful match with "Skonto", they were leading in the Latvian championship. There was a brawl in that match, with more than one player being sent off. After the loss to "Skonto", they also lost to the "Metalurgs" team. After these failures, they remained on top, but the less played "Skonto" may surpass the Daugavpils team. In the last two matches, "Daugava" won and returned to the path of victories and will certainly seek to continue in the Thursday match."
According to the coach, despite the painful loss to "Ekran", the Marijampolė players will come prepared for the match with "Daugava": "The players have recovered from the defeat, although it was very difficult for everyone on Monday. It needs to be understood that this is just one defeat in the series of matches. Of course, they were very important, because a victory would have brought us very close to "Ekran". But we need to look ahead, because even more important matches are ahead. We will come prepared for them. The possibilities of both teams are equal."
V. Liubšys said he did not notice that the players were heavily focused on preparing for the match: "I don't feel that the team is overly focused, but it's not necessary. It's better to be more relaxed today so that we are better prepared on match day."
