Jurgis Kalns: ”Discipline, self-sacrifice, and winning duels will be what can tip the scales in our favor”

11 July 2023

Early Monday morning, the Valmiera FC team flew to the Slovenian city of Ljubljana to meet the local Olimpija team as part of the UEFA Champions League qualifiers on Tuesday evening.

Most of the day was spent on the road, while after arrival, the team had a little rest, followed by training at the Stožice stadium, where they will have to play a game already on Tuesday at 21:00 Latvian time. After training, the team’s head coach Jurgis Kalns made his statement about the game.

The head coach of Valmiera FC, Jurģis Kalns: “The opponent is a very tactically smart team in attack, which likes to play combinational football. They rotate a lot, change positions, and love to play with the ball, but their game is not very fast. The Olimpija team is trying to dominate the game, and press high, as the favorite of the match, they hope to play their game and show their football. They have very big ambitions. Our main task in the first game is to silence them. The conditions are fantastic here, and the grass is great. It’s a bit muggy, 35 degrees, you can feel it, I think you have to be able to adapt to it because it would be a sin not to play football on such a great pitch. From my players, I want to see discipline so that the game plan is executed and our tactics work. If we give our best from the first minutes, then there will probably be a chance to surprise the fans. We have a plan for how they can start playing, and we also have our own plan with what to counter, it’s risky but hopefully, it will work out at least in the early game. Discipline, self-sacrifice, and winning duels will be what can tip the scales in our favor.”

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