A. Tapinas: on the season’s biggest fiasco, plans, and haters

2026-11-09 16:01 © E. Žaldario

Vilnius "Žalgiris” president Andrius Tapinas assessed the work accomplished, the team’s results, and spoke about the club’s plans for the future.

"Before us are two Lithuanian Football League medals. Both are bronze. We collected one with the women’s team, celebrating a last-minute victory in the Vilnius derby and finishing third. The second was presented by LFF representatives during a postseason dinner held yesterday.

Clearly, our girls were happier with the bronze, but in both cases I said that we would work to ensure these were the last bronze medals for both the men’s and women’s "Žalgiris,” A. Tapinas wrote on social media.

Andrius Tapinas’ 22 points:

1. The roller-coaster analogy has already become tiresome for everyone, but "Žalgiris” really was one. And the feeling when you plummet down that roller coaster and reach the bottom is not pleasant. In more than one interview, I have said that I do not get stressed in my work or even in various court cases, but this year "Žalgiris” turned that statement upside down. Those mornings were very unpleasant when you woke up and realized that your team had lost to "Panevėžys” or "Banga” at home. Or not only lost, but been thrashed 0–3.

2. False hope. Sometimes it seems that a consistently bleak season would be better than one full of false hopes. Our first away victory against "Kauno Žalgiris” at the end of May, another home win, drawing level with the champions on points—surely the momentum was on our side—and then a 0–3 defeat in Gargždai. In the summer, you find your rhythm again: three wins in a row, with the teams ahead within reach, and then a 2–3 home defeat to the same Gargždai "Banga.” A fantastic 3–2 home victory against "Kauno Žalgiris,” hope flashes again somewhere, and then a hopeless 0–3 away defeat to "TransINVEST.” That was probably the first time I decided to speak out in such a way that the podcasts had something to discuss all week afterward.

3. The most painful thing is that we had clearly better head-to-head records against our main rivals: 7 points out of 12 against "Kauno Žalgiris” and 8 out of 12 against "Sūduva.” But when you lose 5 points against the league’s eighth-place team and 6 against the seventh-place team, the final result is logical.

4. In sporting terms, the season was clearly unsuccessful. Not tragic, because it would have been a tragedy to fail to qualify for European competitions next year, but certainly unsuccessful. For Vilnius "Žalgiris,” there is only one successful finishing position, and the mistakes made this year prevented us from reaching it.

5. There are mistakes, decisions that did not work out, and a fiasco. It was a mistake to act cautiously during the first transfer window. Clearly, walking along the edge of a financial abyss had a major influence on that decision, and terminating contracts inherited from the previous management cost a great deal of time and money, but Mindaugas Kasperunas has already admitted that a mistake was made.

6. Appointing Rolandas Dziaukstas as head coach was a decision that did not work out. Yes, it was morally correct and commendable, and logical at the time. There is nothing to beat our chests about, but it did not work out and once again showed that pragmatism in football is often stronger than beautiful gestures.

7. The on-field fiasco was, of course, the three 0–3 defeats and the most shameful cup result in Mažeikiai, but personally I would consider the process of preparing the team physically for the season an even greater fiasco. The team felt the consequences throughout the entire season, and they were, for all practical purposes, impossible to fix.

8. Looking at things more positively, making mistakes is inevitable, but remaining stuck in them is simply foolish. Having identified them, we will be able to avoid repeating them.

9. If we were to look for positives on the field, I will not say anything new here—first and foremost, the Miracle in Liepkalnis. I still watch the best moments from the match when I want to lift my spirits, and I still get goosebumps listening to the commentators’ screams.

10. The second transfer window was also a positive, bringing Stanislav Bilenkyi, Danny Lupano, Ivan Lytvynenko, and Dominik Franke to the club. It will be much easier for Andrius Skerla and Grzegorz Mankowski to assemble the team than it was for Rolandas Dziaukstas and Giedrius Klevinskas.

11. I think we all learned several things—even without making mistakes, football requires time and patience to achieve sporting goals, while when there are plenty of mistakes, achieving those goals requires a miracle.

12. Outside the stadium, of course, the mood was completely different. We broke all attendance records and finished with an average of 3,149 spectators in the top division. It is even more satisfying for me to see that we also raised the attendance floor—none of "Žalgiris”’ matches had fewer than 2,000 spectators, even though the weather did not love us this year; it rained during almost every home match.

13. A packed stadium for European matches is already, and will remain, normal, but this year’s strongest statement was the nearly 6,500 people who attended the autumn match against "Kauno Žalgiris.” The good news is that this can be considered a foundation—a stronger team, a bigger budget, more victories, and fewer mistakes will allow us to keep growing these attendance figures as we prepare to move into the National Stadium. Because when I say that, playing at the National Stadium, we will aim for an average attendance of 7,000, nobody will laugh anymore.

14. The wait. I remember the moment when, five minutes before tickets for the "Hajduk” match went on general sale, more than 2,000 people were waiting in line. Another obvious reason why a season ticket will be essential next season.

15. A club without a community is nothing. That is why it was so pleasing to see record numbers in the active supporters’ sections, hear surprised parents tell stories about how their children had started dragging them to the stadium—even though getting them away from the computer had previously seemed impossible—and see veterans returning to the stadium who still remember the days of the legendary "Žalgiris” and shrugging their shoulders when I asked them: why had that green-and-white love fallen asleep?

16. The commercial results also pleased me—when we were discussing it last autumn, €800,000 from sponsors seemed like an almost unattainable goal for our sales department, but all it took was more motivation and more original solutions, and we reached the €1.2 million I had planned. I also think we made plenty of mistakes here and left a considerable amount of money lying on the ground. Next year, the sales department will be given even higher targets, so we will have to work extremely hard to achieve them.

17. Although there was a revolving door in some of the club’s operational positions, by the end of the season we seem to have managed to stabilize the staff for the longer term and identify what is still missing, because the club’s development this year has been hard to believe—last year most of the office rooms were unused, while now we are about to run out of space.

18. We managed to fulfill all the infrastructure promises I made last December. With the help of the stadium’s owners, a new sound system and a large modern scoreboard were installed. Worn-out advertising banners were replaced with LED screens, and the VIP area no longer resembles a 1976 collective-farm canteen.

19. The entrances and exits have not been resolved, so we will have to endure another year, but the emerging habit of arriving earlier and the possibility of having season tickets with assigned seats should help.

20. I spoke a lot this year, so naturally I also said quite a lot. In the future, I will count the points we failed to collect only in my head, but do not expect silence and peace next year either. Additional attention to Lithuanian football certainly has not hurt it yet.

21. My haters, who celebrated Vilnius "Žalgiris”’ defeats, always cheered me up. The interest in football shown by grandmothers with flowerpots in their profile pictures broke all records this year. Clearly, the football pages that were unaccustomed to such a torrent of hatred suffered as well. Never mind—you’ll get used to it.

22. Patience, patience, patience—that is what all the well-meaning people I met this year wished me. Strategic planning helps with patience. We began preparing for next season with long-term plans drawn up in mid-September; at the beginning of November, the new sporting director began work, and I genuinely consider him the most important signing of the new season. He will have both the time and the financial resources to assemble the team optimally, while Andrius Skerla will prepare it for the season. On December 1, not only the club’s plans and finances for 2027 but also those for the more distant future will be publicly presented.