Match №15

The match № 15, group B, fourth tournament day

LITHUANIA – MOLDOVA 1:0 (1:0)

January 27th, 2014, St. Petersburg, Peterburgsky SCC, 500 spectators

Referees: Roman Chernov, Yegor Bolkhovitin, Dmitry Zhvakin

Lithuania: Plukas, Duda, Raziunas, Pangonis, Vitukinas (Armanavichius, 40), Krasnovskis, Stankevichius (Baniulis, 90), Gedminas (Skripkinas, 66), Girdvainis (c), Upstas (Norvilas, 58), Salamanavichus (Narbutas, 85)

Head coach: Arminas Norbekovas

Moldova: Avram, Graur, Bogdan, Jardan, Rata, Anton, Carp (c), Zlatan (Ursu, 60), Dima (Tugui, 75), Mirza (Spataru, 53), Tiron (Lisa, 79)

Head coach: Alexandr Kurteian

Goal: Stankevichius (27, pen.)

Yellow cards: Carp (26), Vitukinas (31), Pangonis (68)

Red card: Duda (38)

Best players: Ignas Plukas, Cristian Avram

 

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After match comments

Head coach of team Lithuania Arminas Norbekovas:

– First I'd like to congratulate my guys with the victory and to thank them for the character. We're already used to play in minority on this tournament: yesterday we played nine and today ten. These three points we gained today are very important for us. I want to note the goalkeeper especially.

– He was chosen the best player in one of the previous matches and today. Is he a steady player of your first team?

– I've mentioned already that our goal-area line is one of the strongest. Today we had Plukas as the goalkeeper. He is a goalkeeper from FC Zalgiris. We have another goalkeeper, Edvinas Gertmonas, but he is younger – of 1996 d. o. b. I don't want to put him on such difficult matches. His age is dangerous, he can get stressed. We need to be careful.

– You got three red cards in three group round games. How can you explain this?

– You'd better ask the referees. Yesterday they gave penalty kick and red card for a fault and today they give penalty kick and yellow card for the same fault. I haven't seen well the desperate foul of today, but I asked my player and he said he even hadn't touched the opponent. So now in warm blood it's difficult to give any comments.

– Team Lithuania is a constant participant of Valentin Granatkin Memorial and Commonwealth Cup. Wouldn't you like to hold tournament like this in your state?

– Well, first of all it's not me but the Football Federation to be asked. Second, of course it would be great to have such home competitions but there is the money problem. We don't have many people in Lithuania who invest in sports and particularly in football. Though, we have specialists. European Championship U-19 which we have recently hosted can witness it.

Head coach of team Moldova Alexandr Kurteian:

– I don't know what to say. 1,5 halves we were attacking and we could win by miles, but we can't score. If we transferred even a small part of our scoring moments into goals the result would be 5:2 to our favor. By scoring moments we are the champions on this Cup. Let's hope that all our goals we have left for the future. There is nothing terrible. Players are young, they have to improve.

– Was the missed goal the result of your captain's mistake?

– It was not his fault. There were other players who lost the moment. They couldn't keep close to Lithuanian players and Karp tried to catch up them. The opponent laid himself open and fell down. The only way was to score penalty kick.

– You talked about lack of individual skills in scoring moments. Can trained schemes improve this problem?

– I don't like trained schemes strongly and I can explain why. I was an attacking midfielder in the past and I can say that it is impossible to train or scheme all situations. It must be done by your feelings, by intuition. I can't put knowledge of how you should act in certain attack into the head of every player. The problem is not in combinations. When you have a chance to score you must hit the woodwork. He must decide by himself. Today we played straightly and simply, but it was because of the hurry. I asked them to go forward all the time. I'll repeat that my players are talented but they need to work hard. In this case there will be result!