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7 pm At the LFF stadium, the Lithuanian team will host Kazakh footballers, starting with a performance in Group 4 of Division C.
The first Lithuanian pancake in the Nations League in 2018-2019 turned into black burns: competing with more powerful competitors in a slightly different format, the Lithuanian team lost all six matches and missed as many as 16 goals.
In general, the team led by Valdas Urbonas has not won the official competition for four years. The only consolation is the control match against New Zealand won 1: 0 at home last November.
Kazakhstan fared better in the same division of the Nations League. Future Lithuanian rivals lost only to Georgians and took second place in their group.
However, the Kazakhs also lost 4 of their last 5 duels. The last time Czech Michal Bilek’s pupils appeared in the square was last November, when they landed with Scotland 1: 3.
A popular Russian portal vseprosport.ru, presenting forecasts of competitions in various sports, doubts that the confrontation of such competitors will grace the campaign of the League of Nations. In particular, he is even convinced otherwise.
“Both teams have been playing very poorly in recent years. We can expect a tough fight, a lot of fouls and a minimal number of chances, as well as goals. However, in our opinion, the line-up is stronger and they should score their first points. in the tournament ”, he tried to predict. vseprosport.ru.
As for the footballers brought to Vilnius by M. Bilekas, the absolute majority of his students play in their homeland, together with Lithuanians Vytautas Andriuškevičius, Artūras Žulpa and Ovidijus Verbickas, of which only the latter will be in the national team this time.
The largest number, six players, represents the country’s champion and current leader of the Almaty “Kairat” championship.
The only “legionnaires” on the team: defenders Marat Bystrov from Grozny Achmat (Russia) and Jan Vorogowski from Antwerp Beerschot (Belgium), as well as safety Bauirzhan Islamhan from Al Ain (UAE) and Baktior Zainudinov from Moscow CSKA (Russia)) .
It is true that there are other legionnaires on the team. Kazakhstan is represented by two “naturalized” Ukrainians: goalkeeper Dmitry Nepogodov and defender Sergei Maliy.
In general, in the last decade alone, the clothing of the Kazakh national team has been worn by two dozen players who grew up abroad, mainly in Russia, Ukraine and Germany. It is true that most of them appeared in the national team on an episodic basis and did not play more than 10 games.
On the other hand, the team did not try to strengthen itself with newcomers from more exotic countries, unlike the national football team of the hall, which is based on Brazilians who received Kazakh passports, or the national hockey team with the help of a team of Canadians.
Lithuania and Kazakhstan in the selection of the 2020 European Championship
The Kazakhs rank 118th in the FIFA rankings and the Lithuanians 131st. The only time the teams have met so far in 2014 in a friendly match in Antalya, Turkey. Then the match did not determine the winner and ended peacefully 1: 1, and Gediminas Vičius distinguished himself among Igor Pankratyev’s students.
By the way, the teams from Kazakhstan and Lithuania had planned to play a friendly match last March, but these intentions were thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic.
In the next match of Group 4 of Division C on Friday, Belarus will face Albania.
Lithuanians will meet the latter on a trip next Monday.
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