Lithuania won the Baltic Cup without much difficulty
The Lithuanian national team triumphed in the tenth Baltic Futsal Cup tournament. In the decisive battle for the title, the Lithuanians defeated Latvia 8: 2 and became the hosts of the Cup four years later. Albertas Voskunovičius won two goals, Edgaras Baranauskas, Lukas Sendžikas, Jurijus Jeremejevas, Ernestas Macenis, Artūras Juchno and Tomas Bučma won each.
In this duel, the coaches of the Lithuanian national team were forced to compete without the captain of the team, and Justinas Zagurskas to earn red on Saturday. Ben Spietinis started it regularly. The remaining four starting players (E. Macenis, A. Voskunovičius, L. Sendžikas and E. Baranauskas) were the same as in the duel against Estonia.
Despite the fact that Latvia is much stronger than Estonia, the new head coach of the Lithuanian national team Dentinho did not abandon the same plan of the game – to push the opponents from the beginning of the match. Such a decision gave Lithuanians a considerable advantage from the very beginning.
The first goal fell in the third meeting. Edgaras Barnanauskas, who has shown an impressive form, successfully left, leaving no chance for the defenders’ protection from a powerful shot of about twelve meters.
It is very important that that goal did not change the game at all. The Lithuanians continued to control and doubled the difference after another four minutes. After a corner at the gate of the Latvian national team, the combination was created for E. Baranauskas. After the last hit of the ball, he bounced it directly to L. Sendžik under his feet and the striker of the long team did not make a mistake. In the first half, J. Jeremeyev also spoke. When the ball left the field behind the sideline, Artūras Juchno parideno mentioned it to J. Jeremejev and scored this second in this Baltic Cup tournament with a great shot.
At the end of the quarter, the Latvians took the initiative and created a couple of dangerous situations, but did not reap any serious benefits. Not only that, that better section of Latvians was very short, because after the break, the Lithuanians took over the initiative again.
The second half started with the pressure of Lithuanians, intercepted by the opponents with balls, dangerously dangerous attacks and a goal in just 77 seconds. A. Vosovičius continued to throw B. Spietinis in every way, this foot returned him to A. Voskunovičius and the latter increased the advantage of the Lithuanian national team to 4: 0. Although there were almost nineteen minutes left until the end of the meeting, the Latvians did nothing to get any closer to the future winners of the Baltic Cup.
Lithuanians, in turn, further increased their dominance. After the Latvians changed their watch to the fifth player, all A. Voskunovičius went to the empty goal.
With seven minutes left in the game, two goals fell in a hundred seconds. After stretching the defense of the Lithuanian national team at the beginning, four of them were honored by five, and soon, after hitting the empty goal all over the field, E. Macenis restored the advantage of five goals.
In the last three minutes, the goals continued to flow freely. Playing five against four, the Latvians once again found gaps in the Lithuanian defense and alleviated the backlog, but our team responded with two balls taken over by A. Juchnas and T. Bučma and accurate shots at the empty goal.
The last strike of the match was put in play three seconds before the Latvians failed to score a six-meter penalty. Karolis Čba defended the opponents and soon the new winners of the Baltic Cup were flooded with euphoria, and the coach Dentinho found himself on the hands of the students.
In two matches, the team coached by Dentinho scored as many as 16 goals and missed only 5. Lithuania won the Baltic Cup for only the second time in history.
Match statistics: Latvia – Lithuania 2: 8 (0: 3).
Salaspils Sports Palace. Judges: Ingus Purins and Eduard Fatkulin (both Latvia)
Goals:
33 min. Mikas Babris, 37 min. Romanas Rozkovskis (both Latvia);
3 min. Edgaras Baranauskas, 7 min. Lukas Sendžikas, 9 min. Yuri Jeremeyev, 22 and 31 min. Albertas Voskunovičius, 36 min. Ernestas Mačenis, 38 min. Artūras Juchno, 38 min. Tomas Bučma (all of Lithuania).
Warn:
14 min. Artūras Jerofejevas, 23 min. Roman Rozhkovsky, 40 min. Edgar Tarakanov (all of Latvia);
24 min. Aivaras Bagočius, 32 min. Lukas Sendžikas, 37 min. Ben Spietinis, 40 min. Jurijus Jeremejevas (all of Lithuania).
Composition of the Lithuanian national team: Ernestas Macenis, Albertas Voskunovičius, Benas Spietinis, Lukas Sendžikas, Edgaras Baranauskas; Karolis Čirba, Andrius Kaulnis, Aivaras Bagočius, Tomas Bučma, Mantas Adomėnas, Artūras Juchno, Lukas Sipavičius, Jurijus Jeremejevas.
futsal.lt