© EuroFootball.com
All weekend in Vilnius, the passions of young football players were boiling - an international children's football tournament organized by the football academy "Žalgirietis" took place at the stadium of the Lithuanian Football Federation. Along with the leader of the Lithuanian championship VMFD "Žalgiris", eighteen teams played in the tournament for ten and eleven year olds. The winners of the eleven-year-old tournament were the home team - the football players of the "Žalgirietis" academy. Coached by Žydrūnas Grudzinskas, the "Žalgirietis" team surpassed the visitors from Poland - the team of "Jagiellonia" from Bialystok, which took second place. The third place was won by the young football players from Jonava. Just a little short of the top three were Kaunas "Tauras" team, coached by the longtime Vilnius "Žalgiris" and "FBK Kaunas" coach Eugenijus Riabovas, which finished fifth. Famous names known to football enthusiasts were present at the awards for the best players. The most productive player of the tournament was Meinardas, the son of former Vilnius "Žalgiris" and Lithuanian national team striker Gražvydas Mikulėnas, playing in the "Žalgirietis" academy. Emotions overflowed in the ten-year-old tournament. In the final, after a tough battle, the football players of Kėdainiai "Nevėžis" defeated the Panevėžys team with a score of 3:2. The third place was taken by the young football players from Klaipėda, who beat Kaunas "Tauras" team 1:0 in the battle for the bronze. The winners, runners-up, and best players of the tournament received impressive trophies and prizes, presented by Ramūnas Radavičius, a footballer from the Lithuanian championship leader VMFD "Žalgiris". For the first time in the international tournament organized by the "Žalgirietis" academy, young football players from eight Lithuanian cities - Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėžys, Kėdainiai, Plungė, and Jonava, as well as guests from Poland - the clubs "Jagiellonia" from Bialystok and "Legia" from Warsaw participated. More than five hundred children aged 5 to 16 visit the largest "Žalgirietis" football academy in Vilnius.
