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On Wednesday at 18:00 at the Vilnius "Sportima" arena, the first Baltic Football League match will be played by the champions of the past season of Lithuania, FBK "Kaunas," and the silver medalists of the Estonian championship, Narva "Trans."
Baltic Football League Round 1 Group A matches FBK "Kaunas" - Narva "Trans"
In these matches, the Lithuanian champions should field their strongest lineup since there are no injured players in the team.
In their last friendly match, "Kaunas" played last Wednesday at a camp in Turkey, where they lost 0-3 to Yekaterinburg's "Ural." However, in this match, the team experimented with their lineup and made many substitutions.
Interestingly, during the offseason, "Kaunas" was one of the few Lithuanian teams that experimented with playing three defenders.
Before the match with "Trans," the head coach of the Kaunas team, who will make his debut in official matches at the helm of "Kaunas," admitted he knows little about the Estonian club, except for what he managed to find out from other coaches. The coach added that "Kaunas" is more familiar with Latvian clubs, with whom they have played more friendly matches. Still, the coach hoped that considering the presence of many Russians in "Trans," the team would demonstrate a Russian-style game.
Meanwhile, the Narva club prepared for the season unimpressively - the team returned on Friday from a training camp in Riga, where in friendly matches they defeated the Latvian lower league team "Jelgava" and the reserve team of Riga's "Skonto," and drew 1-1 with Riga's "Olimps."
However, undoubtedly, the preseason leaders in the "Trans" ranks are Vladislav Ivanov and Aleksandr Dubokin, who together scored seven out of nine goals for the Narva club. Meanwhile, the team's star Maksim Gruznov has not scored a single goal yet.
"Trans" will likely field the strongest lineup, but it is worth noting that the team performs very poorly in international matches.
Predicted lineups:
"Kaunas": Mindaugas Malinauskas; Pascal Mendy, Mindaugas Bagužis, Nerijus Radžius, Dainius Kunevičius; Nukri Manchkhava, Andrius Bartkus, Oleg Strakhanovic, Edin Pehlic; Viacheslav Hleb, Ričardas Beniušis
"Trans" (according to partners SoccerNet.ee): Sergei Ussoltsev; Aleksei Gorškov, Aleksandr Kulik, Stanislav Kitto, Oleg Lepik; Aleksandr Dubõkin, Oleg Gorjatšov, Vladislav Ivanov, Aleksandr Tarassenkov; Dmitri Lipartov, Maksim Gruznov
