© EuroFootball.com
On Wednesday before the festive State Day weekend, one match will take place in the Lithuanian "A league" championship - the III round of the competition will begin with a match between the teams "Vilnius" and "Šilutė", which recently played against each other in postponed 1st round matches. All four other matches of the 19th round will be played on Friday - "Sūduva" will play against "Žalgiris", "Ekranas" will host "Nevėžis", "Vėtra" will meet "Atlantas", and "Kaunas" will face "Šiauliai".
Kick-off: 18:30
"Vilnius", currently in sixth position, suffered a humbling defeat in the last round playing against another team from the Baltic coast - they lost 1-4 to Klaipėda's "Atlantas" and had to admit their first loss under the guidance of their new coach. Meanwhile, the penultimate "Šilutė" were forced to suffer a 1-2 defeat at home against the league's bottom team Kėdainiai "Nevėžis", allowing them to narrow the gap to two points.
This will be the third match between these teams this season - the first one was won by Vilnius away with a narrow margin after a single goal from Mindaugas Panka, while in the second match the capital's team won 2-1. Brazilian Rinaldo and the same M. Panka scored in that game, and Vadimas Petrenka scored a consolation goal for the Šilutė team at the end of the match.
Recently, there have been changes in both teams. "Šilutė" lost Mindaugas Pacevičius, who returned to "Kaunas", Nerijus Mačiulis joined "Sūduva" and Vadimas Petrenka moved to "Metalurgs", while in the last round a Russian legionnaire Maksimas Berdnikas appeared in the teams.
Meanwhile, two foreign forwards have joined "Vilnius" - 22-year-old Nigerian Akanni Wasiu, who arrived from his homeland Lagos where he spent the previous season at Polish second league club Jaworzno "Szczakowianka", and 27-year-old Brazilian Cicero. Replacing the injured Adilson, A. Wasiu has already played in the starting lineup of Vilnius team and scored a goal, while Cicero played for about 20 minutes.
Both players will likely form an attacking tandem, as another Brazilian forward Muller will not be able to help "Vilnius" due to received cards.
