At the European indoor football championship taking place in Riga on Wednesday, the Latvian national team played a good first half, but still lost 1:4 to the Croatian national team and did not enter the quarterfinals. Edgars Tarakanovs scored the only goal for the Latvians, putting the team in the lead.
(Augmented with post-game interviews.)
Before the match, the Latvian national team was in the best starting position, for which one point or a draw would be enough, while Croatia needed a victory to enter the quarter-finals.
From the first minutes, the Croatians tried to take the reins of the game into their own hands, which succeeded in the context of the pressure exerted. As a result, the goal guarded by Rainers Mūrnieks was threatened a few times, but the home team made the first changes on the scoreboard – when less than four minutes had been played, the Latvian national team had a corner kick opportunity.
Latvia takes the lead
It was performed by Andrejs Baklanov, who accurately moved the ball across the entire penalty area to Edgars Tarakanov on the opposite side. The striker did not think for long, but beautifully hit the ball straight from the air into the goal – 1:0.
Afterwards, the Croatians continued to play more with the ball, being able to break the structure of the goal of the Latvian national team and in general to push the Latvians into their side of the field. At the expense of that, after playing ten minutes, the head coach of our national team, Massimiliano Bellarte, requested a one-minute break in order to reduce the pressure of the opponents a little.
In a similar manner to Tarakanov, Kristians Cekols also tried to score a goal for the Croatian national team in the 12th minute, but Mūrnieks was able to finish with his powerful shot.
Bellarte’s one-minute break did not make a big difference in the course of the game, as the opponents continued to attack just as diligently, but the disciplined defense also made them nervous, which was reflected in the violations of the rules. In the first half, the Croatian futsal players had already earned two yellow cards.
Time was running out quickly in the first half and it seemed that the debutants of this tournament would manage to keep their clean sheet, but the Croatians had other thoughts.
Croatia equalises the score
55 seconds before the big break, in one of the attacks, the defense of the Latvian national team slightly blocked the shot of Josip Jurlins, who sent the ball into the goal – 1:1.
The Latvians get behind with 1:2
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the second half, the Croatian national team scored another goal –
Mūrnieks and the defender did not understand each other, which was cleverly used by Luka Peričs, who after a pass from his team’s goalkeeper Ante Pipličas across the entire field, the Croatians already took the lead – 1:2.
Croatia scores the third goal
In the middle of the half, the naturalized Brazilian futsal player Vitor Lima showed his individual skill, who outplayed both the Latvian defender and Mūrnieks, sending the ball into an empty net – 1:3.
Croatians score their fourth goal
After that, Bellart had no choice but to replace the goalkeeper with a fifth field player, but in one of the episodes, Tarakanov lost the ball and David Mataja made the already unpleasant 1:4.
Until the end of the match, the Latvians desperately tried to attack, episodically creating a lot of tension at the goal of the Croatian national team, but the ball did not fly into the goal. And the exact opposite happened. After the great start of the tournament, the Latvian national team still had to settle for third place in subgroup A, sending Croatia to the quarterfinals.
Post-match interview with Matyushenko
The captain of the team, Germanas Matyushenko, admitted in an interview to Latvian Television after the game that he failed to take advantage of the given opportunities, and emphasized the first goal conceded less than a minute before the end of the first half. Also, the striker revealed that the turning point of the match was probably the third goal conceded, which, in his words, should not have been allowed in any way.
Post-match interview with Tarakanova
In an interview with journalists after the match, the most productive striker of the Latvian national team, Edgars Tarakanovs, expressed his gratitude to everyone who came to the games. “Of course, we wanted to show the best results, get out of the group, please the whole arena and us, but it turned out the way it is. France and Croatia are very strong teams, and we saw where we need to correct our mistakes,” said Tarakanov.
On Saturday, the last match will take place in Riga – one of the quarter-finals, the other will be played in Kaunas, while the medals will be played in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The game for gold will take place on February 6.
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