E. Černiauskas before the duel in Wales: 'We're expecting pressure from the first seconds'

2025-07-17 07:17 © Lino Žemgulio

The players of "Kauno Žalgiris" set off from Kaunas airport to the United Kingdom on Wednesday morning and reached the Welsh capital, Cardiff.

On Thursday, the return leg of the first qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League will take place at the Cardiff International Sports Complex against the Bridgend "Penybont" team.

The first leg was won by the Kaunas team 3:0 in Lithuania, but ahead of the upcoming match, the team's head coach Eivinas Černiauskas insists that this was only the first half and is trying to prepare the team for a tough battle.

"We talked right after the match in Jonava that this was only the first half. We have seen bigger results in football that were overturned, so we talked about it right away, and during the training process in Kaunas. We will repeat this today and tomorrow before the match. I think all the players understand this, after all, it is not a young team, we all want to participate in the second stage," the strategist told Žalgiris.lt before the evening training in Cardiff.

According to the specialist, one can expect great energy from the opponents from the very beginning of the match.

"In the first match, everyone felt that there would be a lot of physical football, very many duels. I imagine that tomorrow will be even tougher matches. The opposing team has nothing to lose, so we expect pressure from the first seconds, a lot of high balls into our penalty area, a lot of duels. We must be prepared for that," E. Černiauskas said, looking ahead to the upcoming confrontation.

Although the match will be held in a stadium in Cardiff that seats no more than 30,000 spectators, the coach did not complain about the conditions for the green and white team.

"The conditions are very good. The pitch is really impressive, the stadium is good. There is everything you need to play football," the coach added, sharing insights about the trip.

The match between "Kauno Žalgiris" and "Penybont" in Cardiff will start on July 17 at 20:00 local time, and residents of Lithuania will be able to watch the match completely free of charge on the official "Žalgiris" app, which can be downloaded from the "App Store" or "Google Play".