Against a powerful opponent – without defensive towers: the hope of Lithuanian handball players – enthusiasm and stands | Sports

Return match on May 12. will be held in the Hungarian city of Vesprem. The winner of the pair will win a ticket to the world championship, which will be held in three countries – Croatia, Denmark and Norway – in January next year.

Lithuanians welcome the duel with the participant of the Paris Olympic Games rather painfully bleeding.

Jonas Truchanovičius has been unable to help the national team for some time due to a serious knee injury, but this time health problems also stopped another tower of the Lithuanian national team – captain Gerda Babarskas.

Feeling pain in his back, the 30-year-old from Kaunas helped the national team beat the Finns in the last qualifying round, but the situation did not improve – now the goalkeeper is being looked after by the doctors of the Aix club and they hope that he will be able to return to the field at least for the decisive battles of the French championship.

Due to a foot injury, Ben Butkaus, who is competing in Germany, will not be in the national team either. Andrius Montvilas from Kaunas “Granit” will not come due to university exams, Martynas Lapinskas, representative of “Vilniaus” was also unable to participate in the national team due to being busy at work.

“The men are very focused and seriously preparing for these two matches. We know the capacity of the opponents, so there is really no time to look around and see what is missing here. There are other men who will fill the vacancies and I have no doubt that they are ready to give their all. Both Jonas and Gerda are our key players, especially in defence. We build our game around them at our gates. Our other players have a lot of desire and opportunities, but they have not accumulated such experience. We won’t cover up those holes so easily, but I want to hope that we will find new leaders who will boldly take on these roles”, said Gintaras Savukynas, 53, who leads the national team on the eve of the match in Vilnius.

“These are losses that cannot be compensated, let’s be honest, we don’t have players of this level in the national team at the moment. However, everyone will have to work twice as hard for Gerda and Jonah. Everyone understands that now someone will have to appear who will be able to pull the team behind him”, noted Aiden Malašinskas, the leader of the 38-year-old national team.

According to the ranking, the Lithuanian national team, which entered the second round of the World Championship selection, overcame the first barrier only after a dramatic struggle. Both meetings of the Lithuanian national team with the Finns ended in a draw – 20:20 away and 26:26 at home. The Lithuanians won a place in the next round after defeating the Finns in Alytus in a penalty shootout.

G. Savukynas did not help the Lithuanians in these matches. The specialist worked as a coach for Al Arabi in Doha, Qatar, and the club did not allow him to go to the national team due to conflicting schedules between European national teams and Asian clubs.

“However, now everything was much simpler. We finished cooperation with the club, so there were no obstacles this time,” said G. Savukynas.

Although the national team strategist could not be with the team, his hand was strongly felt both in Vantaa and in Alytus.

“We prepared an analysis with the members of the staff, we made preparation plans. During the match itself, I also sat in front of the screen, kept statistics and was constantly in touch with our doctor Gediminas Buti on the phone, to whom I sent messages and in this way we tried to react to the events on the field”, – the national team coach smiled, remembering the last selection window.

“The national team is hurt, we don’t have key players, but the mood is not bad because of that. Even with our leaders, we wouldn’t have been favorites of this pair. Nobody won or lost anything until we entered the field. We are preparing in a positive mood and we believe that the help of the audience can help us a lot. We can remember that big victories against big opponents were achieved precisely when we had a strong back in the stands. For example, the recent match against the Finns in Alytus. There was a very good atmosphere,” A. Malašinskas recalled.

The Hungarian national team took 5th place in this year’s European Championship and won a ticket to the Paris Olympic Games in the selection tournament.

The country with a deep handball tradition recorded its biggest success in 1986, when it won silver at the World Championship in Switzerland.

In the strongest tournament of the continent, the EHF Champions League, Hungarians currently have even two clubs – Telekom from Vesprem and OTP Bank from Szeged. Both of them made the playoffs this season.

The results of recent duels also tell a lot about the strength of the future opponent. In October 2022 and February 2023, Lithuania played against the Hungarians in the third qualifying round of the European Championship and then they had no chance – they lost 31:46 at home, 23:36 away.

“Since then, the Hungarian team has changed little. They have a very balanced composition. Top level players in all positions. The opponent is really difficult”, G. Savukynas did not hide.

“We did not succeed in those two matches against the Hungarians, but we would like to rehabilitate and show that we can play much better. We want a positive result, and then to reach the final goal”, A. Malašinskas did not raise the white flag.

True, at that time the Lithuanians played their home matches in Klaipėda. Now the national team returns to Vilnius, which can be safely associated with the most prominent victories of our handball team.

In April 2021, it was in the capital that Lithuanians beat the national team of Iceland, and this victory later allowed our handball players to win a ticket to the 2022 European Championship.

“We can remember not only that victory against the Icelanders, but that here we also defeated Norway, we played solidly against elite teams like Croatia or France. At one point, we were already based in Vilnius, it was our home arena. Now we haven’t played here for a while, but that return to a well-known place should add even more emotions”, thought G. Savukynas.

LRF photo/Lithuanian handball team’s triumph in the match against Finns

Lithuanian handball players have participated in the world championship only once. In 1997, our team took 10th place in the world championships in Japan. By the way, at that time one of the team leaders was the current national team coach G. Savukynas.

Composition of the Lithuanian national team:

• Goalkeepers: Lukas Gurskis (Vilnius “Amber”), Matas Pranckevičius and Giedrius Morkūnas (both Vilnius “Šviesa”).
• Left sides: Ernestas Stvolas (Amber) and Mantas Urvikis (Light).
• Left halves: Karolis Antanavičius (Hard Alpla, Austria), Matas Aukštikalnis (Amber), Modestas Štarolis (Kaunas “Granitas-Karys”) and Matas Kairys (Klaipėda “Dragūnas”).
• Offensive players: Aiden Malašinskas (HC Buzau, Romania), Ben Petreikis (TuS N-Lubbecke, Germany), Romas Aukštikalnis (Empor Rostock, Germany) and Tomas Drakšas (Dragūnas).
• Lineman: Džiugas Jusys (HSG Hanau, Germany).
• Right halves: Mindaugas Dumčius (Elbflorenz Dresden, Germany) and Žanas Gabrielius Virbauskas (CSM Bacau, Romania).
• Right sides: Marius Kairys (“Granitas-Karys”) and Mykolas Lapiniauskas (“Dragūnas”).