On Sunday, January 30th Valmiera FC team played the final exhibition game before heading out to the training camp in Turkey. On this occasion, we met with the Estonian highest league – Kalju FC side on our second time visiting Viljandi.
The game started with opponents controlling the ball more to create scoring chances and they managed to squeak one past Matrevics early on. Our chances were stoned on multiple occasions due to an offside call. As the end of the half approached the game had calmed down immensely. Luckily down by one after the first forty-five.
In the second half, both sides made changes in their squads. It was visible that our young players that stepped on the pitch were more hungry. A few unsuccessful attempts but eventually the turnaround goal was found – first Tonisevs directed the ball towards Niks Dusalijevs who found Testable Player #6 who was parked close to the net.
In the eightieth minute of the game, a comeback was officially completed with a go-ahead-goal – Chupin performed a robbery and entered the penalty area from which he quickly passed up to Lusins who was there to battle one-on-one with the netminder and the latter had no hopes of making the save – 2:1.
Although opponents did have more to say their rare attempts didn’t materialize as the game had shifted right into the hands of Valmiera. Thus, the double whistle by the referee marked the first victory in pre-season.
Starting 11 vs Kalju FC: Rihards Matrevics, Pape Fall, Kristers Neilands, Roman Yakuba, Alvis Jaunzems, Aleksandr Gapechkin, Masaki Murata, Daisuke Yokota, Diop Meissa, Alioune Ndoye, Djibril Gueye.
Substitutes: Vjaceslavs Kudrjavcevs, Maksims Tonisevs, Testable Player #2, Rūdolfs Zeņģis, Testable Player #5, Valeri Chupin, Niks Dusalijevs, Kristers Lūsins, Testable Player #6, Luka Silagadze.
On Wednesday Valmiera FC team will travel to Turkey to fully begin the training camp for the upcoming Optibet Futbola Virsliga season. We will provide you with updates in due course.
