Valmiera FC team returned to Jana Dalina stadium for the 22nd round of the Optibet Virsliga to host the FK Metta team. An exciting game with many goals handed the hosts a 6:1 victory.
The game was off to a strong start by the home side – Valmiera FC wasn’t going to let anything slip early on. Plenty of chances from multiple locations with different scenarios, still the ball went over the net on a few of those as well as the opposing goalie Janis Beks managed to make a few quite important saves.
The stalemate was broken in the 17th minute of the game when Daisuke Yokota tried to pass into the penalty area and after a few lucky bounces the ball ended up right on the leg of Djibril Gueye. The Senegalian player quickly adjusted to the situation and beat the goalkeeper to give his team a 1:0 lead.
As the score didn’t change and Valmiera still controlled things in the first half, for the second half slight adjustments were made. Jurgis Kalns swapped out Masaki Murata for Alvis Jaunzems and Djibril Gueye headed to rest and Camilo Mena stepped on the pitch.
Five minutes later Mena was the player who managed to set up Lukass Vapne for his first ever goal in a Valmiera FC shirt. Bruno Melnis got a goal back for Metta bringing back some intrigue into the match.
In the 61st minute of the game, two Valmiera FC defenders showed their capabilities – Maksims Tonisevs found Daniels Balodis who was parked right in front of the goal, and beauty was scored – Balodis was facing backward and used his heel to finish off the sequence with a goal to assure a return of a two-goal lead.
Vapne wasn’t done either – Kristers Penkevics sent an air ball towards him and he managed to control it just enough for the ball to go into the net for the 4th time as the player was substituted shortly after.
With one youngster pulled off – Artur Murza stepped on the pitch to make his Valmiera FC debut and what a way to celebrate it – a goal followed. Yokota once again was on the scene with a quick pass to the Ukrainian player who unleashed a powerful kick which ended up making it 5:1 in favor of Valmiera.
The game ended on a positive note for the hosts – Metta put an exclamation point by scoring one in their own net to round out the game and set the end score of 6:1.
Our next game will be played on Thursday (28.07) in the UEFA Europe Conference league where we will meet Shkendija for the second leg match.
