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In the prestigious "Nike Premier Cup" youth tournament taking place in Croatia, the residents of Šiauliai, FC "Napolis," had to admit the superiority of the Hungarian "MTK" club with a score of 7-0 in the first match, and in the second match, they lost 0-1 to the young football players from Vienna, "Austria."
The first Friday’s match did not start well for the residents of Šiauliai. The Hungarians quickly took advantage of a mistake by FC "Napolis" defenders and scored the first goal. Meanwhile, the Lithuanians were unable to counterattack.
"MTK" punished our players without mercy - the second goal was scored after another defensive mistake. Soon after, the Hungarians scored a third goal from a corner. Justinas Krištopaitis missed a great opportunity at the end of the half - his header narrowly missed the post. In the second half, the Hungarians continued to dominate the Lithuanians and scored another 4 goals.
FC "Napolis" coach Saulius Lesnickas said that the young football players broke down psychologically. "Only a few players from our team performed to their abilities, others made many mistakes, simply could not hit the ball, played as if they were scared," said S. Lesnickas.
It seems that before the second match, the coaches managed to calm the young Šiauliai football players down, and they played better against Vienna "Austria." They defended well, tried to create counterattacks. Although the Austrians had the advantage until halftime, they failed to score. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the second half, an Austrian striker broke away from the Lithuanians. Being alone against the goalkeeper, he shot the ball into the net, and the goalkeeper could not do anything to prevent it.
The rest of the match was a close battle, mostly taking place in the middle of the field. Coach S. Lesnickas said that although they failed to win points, the players believed that the other teams were not as strong as they seemed after the first matches. The coach regretted that quite a few players were not in their best form due to recent illnesses.
In the morning matches of Group C, the teams of Austria and Turkey ended in a 2-2 draw. After lunch, there were two more Group C matches - "Bursaspor" - "Maccabi" 0:0 and "MTK" - "Maccabi" 0:0. Tomorrow, FC "Napolis" will play early in the morning (8:30) against the team from Turkey's "Bursaspor," while the Lithuanians will face off against Israel's "Maccabi" at 11:30.
In the U-15 team tournament, matches consist of two halves of 20 minutes each. The tournament is being held on three fields. The final will take place at the main field of Zagreb's "Dinamo." The two finalists will battle only for the first place. The main goal of this tournament is to qualify for the final "Manchester United Premier Cup" tournament in Hong Kong - these two teams will have already achieved this in the semifinals.
