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On Wednesday evening in Tallinn, the first match of the Baltic Football League C group will be played by Vilnius "Žalgiris", who finished 4th in the last A League season, against last year's Estonian champions Tallinn "Levadia".
In the last friendly match, playing to a draw of 0-0 with Gintaras Staučė's club "Jūrmala", the Žalgiris players returned from their camp in Cyprus not without losses. The main defender Anatolijus Ostapas suffered a serious injury - he tore his lateral knee ligaments. Team manager Arminas Narbekovas is not yet willing to predict how long the Moldovan will be out of the game, but his words were not optimistic: "Now it's hard to say how long A.Ostapas will recover, but when Raimondas Vilėniškis suffered a similar injury last year, his rehabilitation lasted up to 4 months..." In Estonia, the Žalgiris team will be without their new defenders Edvinas Lukoševičius and Aleksejus Dubina, who are still dealing with the last formalities of their contracts. For unknown reasons, the Moldovan Iulianas Bursucas did not travel to Estonia.
Speaking to EuroFootball.com about tomorrow's opponents, the "Levadia" team, Žalgiris coach and president Arminas Narbekovas was cautious: "This is a team that won their country's championship and maintained a high level of play throughout last season. It will be difficult, but we will try to show ourselves honorably and fight."
"In general, the Baltic League is just a stage of preparation for us for the Lithuanian championship. We do not set specific goals in it, but we will try to perform as well as possible," continued the strategist. Speaking about the Baltic League in general, Arminas Narbekovas did not hold back criticism for this project: "It seems that this league is not necessary at the moment, as there is almost no advertising or information on the subject, as if everything is being overlooked. I think that most clubs will prioritize national championships. This league has been officially recognized by UEFA. So why wouldn't it be possible to give the best teams in the tournament a ticket to UEFA tournament games? I think that then there would be enough motivation and intrigue in the matches."
Žalgiris, who are finalizing last minute preparations before the season, hope to strengthen their offense in the near future. "We need even greater support and striking power in attack. Soon we plan to review several candidates for forwards. For now, the other areas satisfy me – defenders and goalkeepers have played well recently," said A.Narbekovas about the situation in the team.
Žalgiris' opponents, the "Levadia" players, already started their country's championship last weekend, crushing the Tartu "Maag Tammeka" team 4-0. The goals for the Estonian champions were scored by Indrek Zelinski, Konstantin Nahkas (from a penalty kick), Vitalij Leitan and Andrej Kalimulin. Interestingly, in the entire match, the opponents never allowed their opponents to take a shot on goal. Before the season, the Estonian champions held a training camp in Turkey, where they defeated clubs such as Krasnodar's "Kuban", Moscow's "Torpedo" and Vladivostok's "Luch-Energia". Speaking to the Estonian press about their future opponents from Vilnius, "Levadia" coach Tarmo Ruutli did not hide his respect: ""Žalgiris" is undoubtedly a slightly better team than "Levadia". However, we will play at home and hope to balance our game, as the team does not look good right now. We will play cautiously in the first quarter of the match and analyze the opponents." T.Ruutli also emphasized that his team will prioritize national championships, but does not intend to give up easily in the Baltic League. In these matches, "Levadia" will have to play without young forward Nikita Andrejev and attacking midfielder Konstantin Vasiljev. The first is still recovering from an injury, and the second had to fulfill military duty, so they did not prepare for the new season with the team and are currently in poor form. Furthermore, today "Levadia" announced that forward Vladimir Voskoboinikov will play in the Russian First League team "Torpedo" on loan until summer, so he should be replaced in the starting lineup by Indrek Zelinski. Probable line-ups for the teams: "Žalgiris": Ernestas Šetkus; Marijus Krukovskis, Igor Steško, Bertand Ngapunu, Marijan Choruži; Eimantas Poderis, Raimondas Vilėniškis, Andrius Miliškevičius, Virmantas Lemežis; Igor Morinas, Valerij Mižigurskis; "Levadia" (according to partners SoccerNet.ee): Martin Kaalma; Tihhon Šišov, Marek Lemsalu, Vitoldas Čepauskas, Denis Malov; Ats Purje, Konstantin Vassiljev, Alexander Dmitrijev, Vitali Leitan; Tarmo Kink, Indrek Zelinski.
