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With France, our national team played honorably – this must be acknowledged even by the biggest critics. This is confirmed by the fact that the French were more than satisfied with their minimal victory: although after the match France's national team coach Raymond Domenech did not rejoice about the result, his decision to maintain the attacking plan to secure Florent Malouda instead of allowing "destroyer" Abou Diaby to speak for itself.
So, we scared the World vice-champions. Probably only the biggest optimists expected a victory, a draw – a more realistic option, but before the match there were many comments: "I love and respect the team, but let's be happy if we lose only 0-2 or 0-3." So maybe it is worth celebrating a honorable defeat of 0-1. After all, we are not English, Brazilians or Spaniards to criticize our team after a minimal loss to the World vice-champions. There is no need to fall into a sense of inferiority, but sometimes you need to rejoice in progress. For example, for San Marino national team, it is not a celebration when the team wins or plays a draw, but when they manage to score a goal, even if they lose 1-4 or by an even more impressive result.
Although nothing new will be said, what was missing for the team? First of all – more mature play in the midfield. Watching yesterday's match, there was a thought that some players in the center of the field are panicky afraid of the ball and only try to send it as far away from themselves as they can when they get it. However, objectively, our team is not at a level where they can change passes precisely, so sometimes it might be worth keeping the ball – after all, the French didn't constantly press our players down. Only David Šemberas on Saturday was not afraid to keep the ball, which some commentators, probably used to our cautious play, quickly accused him of holding on to the ball too long. In this place, the brothers Česnauskas and/or Saulius Mikoliūnas would have been very useful.
Because of this fear of the ball, another problem arises. If we manage to get closer to the World vice-champions' goal, unnecessary passes are made one after another. You need to take a shot because trying to push the ball into the opponent's goal, as attempted yesterday, rarely succeeds. The absence of Edgars Jankauskas was strongly felt on the field. This "veteran" of our national team and the most famous player not only has a good shot among all the attackers currently in the team, but has also played against many of the French players who were on the field on Saturday. Perhaps it would be purposeful to gradually prepare his replacement – and not among those already in the team, who, it must be admitted, do not stand out with impressive shooting technique, but among others, players not yet invited to the team.
Yesterday, our right-wing looked very good – the debutants of official matches Arūnas Klimavičius and Marius Stankevičius. They not only felt and understood each other very well ("Ekranas" school?), but also played well individually. Arūnas Klimavičius, who recently moved to Moscow's "Dynamo," surprised with his composure in the game, although in a few episodes (for example, receiving a yellow card, or at the end of the match, when he threw the ball into the goal with his hands) he acted somewhat irresponsibly. However, from a playing perspective he deserves praise: no one expected that the players from the best European clubs would be covered so that not a single attack would pass through Arūnas Klimavičius' side, although there were not many of them. Being successful defensively, the former "Ekranas" defender, Arūnas Klimavičius, was even more successful in attack, showing off not only the ball control techniques learned in Italy, but also excellent raids and passes. Perhaps his position is that of an attacking full-back – in this case, there is no need to grab your head every time the opponents attack, witnessing the helplessness of the Lithuanian who once fascinated the Italians with his defense.
In addition to all this, it should be noted that the champions of the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 European Championship, last year's World Cup vice-champions did not play as they should. They were hindered by the absence of leaders and not very even S. Darius and S. Girėnas Stadium in Kaunas. You don't want to repeat that "we didn't deserve to lose." That's football and it is not in vain said that the ball is round. However, progress is visible and felt in the team's game. For this, they deserved to be escorted from the stadium yesterday with not chants of "thank you! thank you!" then at least honoring them with loud applause.
P.S. A separate compliment deserves the Lithuanian Football Federation: for the wonderful match program and organization of the official part. After the last Lithuanian "embarrassment" in the same stadium with the Scots when they had to sing, mutter or not sing the anthem, the federation decided to invite a soloist to sing the anthem. It really paid off – it seems that the fans sang louder Vincas Kudirka's verses that once dazzled.
