Lithuania's youth (up to 21 years old) football team started preparing for the upcoming European U-21 Championship qualifying matches with Moldova in Vilnius on Monday. These matches will be played on Thursday in Vilnius, starting at 18:30 at the Lithuanian Football Federation stadium. The Lithuanian team started the qualification for the 2015 European Championship by earning seven points, but then followed a streak of failures. This included a match in Moldova, where our team was left playing with ten men early in the game. Nevertheless, the Lithuanians now face three consecutive home matches, which gives the team hope to compete for higher places in the group and even advance to the next stage. National team coaches Arminas Narbekovas and Mindaugas Čepas invited 18 players from Lithuanian leagues and one foreign player - defender Aurimas Vilkaitis, who trained with the national men's team last week. Seven national team members wear Panevėžys "Ekrano" uniforms this season, four - Klaipėda "Atlantas", three - Marijampolė "Sūduva". This was seen as an advantage by "Atlantas" striker Donatas Kazlauskas. "The fact that the national team composition is practically made up of players competing in the A league is definitely a plus. After all, all footballers playing in Lithuania are already in good shape and I think that will help us in Thursday's match against Moldova," said D. Kazlauskas. In the match against Moldova, the national team will be without injured goalkeepers Edgaras Baranauskas, Ovidijus Verbickas, Deimantas Petravičius, and forwards Lukas Spalvis and Simonas Stankevičius were called up to the national team. "These matches will be completely different, as we still feel the pain of last year's defeat in Moldova. We must retaliate against them," said one of the many "Ekrano" players invited to the national team, defender Edvinas Girdvainis. Colleagues in the national team agreed with D. Kazlauskas, who played in the first match against Moldova, and he assured that the team has a lot of anger towards the upcoming match. "We must win against the Moldovans because they are certainly not better than us, and that defeat was just a result of red cards and a series of unsuccessful events. We want to prove to our fans that we can and must win at home," confidently said the national team striker. Lithuania's U-21 National Team composition: Goalkeepers: Ignas Plūkas (FK "Šiauliai") Kornelijus Timofejevas (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Defenders: Aurimas Vilkaitis (AS Roma "Lazio", Italy) Rytis Pilotas (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Edvinas Girdvainis (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Vilmantas Bagdanavičius (Marijampolės "Sūduva") Markas Beneta (Klaipėdos "Atlantas") Edgaras Žarskis (Klaipėdos "Atlantas") Justinas Januševskis (FK "Trakai") Midfielders: Ernestas Veliulis ("Klaipėdos granitas") Dovydas Norvilas (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Tomas Salamanavičius (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Gerardas Žukauskas (Klaipėdos "Atlantas") Donatas Kazlauskas (Klaipėdos "Atlantas") Povilas Kiselevskis (Marijampolės "Sūduva") Mindaugas Grigaravičius (Marijampolės "Sūduva") Rokas Gedminas (FK "Šiauliai") Tomas Dapkus (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Forwards: Lukas Baranauskas (Panevėžio "Ekranas") Klaudijus Upstas (Kauno "Stumbras")
LFF
