Halfway through the season, Banga football club is in 8th place in the top league standings. We talk to Portuguese head coach David Afonso about the club’s strengths and weaknesses. In the middle of the championship, 27 different football players managed to appear in the ranks of “Banga”. 13 of them are students of the club!
According to age – a record
– David, how do you personally assess the results of “Banga”?
– When evaluating the results in general, first of all, you need to look back at the goals set at the beginning of the season. The club’s goal was to include as many young players as possible in the A-League and to preserve its place among the strongest teams in the country on a sporting basis. We did that and quite successfully. The players have improved a lot during that time, made huge progress. Unity, dedication, combativeness, ambition always pull us forward. I am grateful to everyone who contributes to this.
At one time, a number of players had injuries, so there was a unique opportunity to send the players of the first team to the field. Povilas Kasperavičius and Erikas Smulkys appeared on the football field. After that, we only found out that a record was also achieved. in 2007 born P. Kasperavičius became the youngest player to play in the top league. He was 14 years, 4 months and 29 days old in his debut match against Panevėžys. “Banga” players are regularly invited to the youth national teams: Darius Zubauskas and Karolis Žebrauskas (U-21 national team), Karolis Toleikis (U-19), Erikas Smulkys and Benas Juška (U-17).
The goal was set for us – to raise the young generation of young people from the district, from Gargždi, so that as many of them as possible could join the ranks of the professional “Banga” football club. Both facts and figures prove that we manage to achieve this goal. The Wave team has the lowest average age in the entire league at 24.11. The oldest players by average age play in “Žalgiris” – 28.86. As a coach, I am also the youngest in the A-League, and at the same time one of the youngest in Europe (smiling – author’s post).
– Does the young team really have enough ambition and combativeness?
– With existing resources – the results are good. We have won 4 points in the last 5 games against the leaders of the championship. We are going in the right direction.
We have a lot of ambition and desire, all efforts are being made. This is best proven by the fact that even 11 different players managed to score at least 1 goal and 10 team representatives made it to the symbolic selection of the tour at least once: Kornelijs Smilingis (2 times), Ernestas Stočkūnas (2), Mauricio Pinto (2), Renan Paulino (2) ), Goncalo Vieira (2), Darius Zubauskas (1), Valdas Antužis (1), Pijus Srėbalius (1), Karolis Žebrauskas (1), Modestas Vainikaitis (1).
Lack of experience
– What weaknesses would you name, why a young and ambitious team cannot achieve good results in the standings?
– The reason is very simple. The weak link is lack of experience. Team captain Roberts Vēževičius is 36 years old, he understands what is happening on the field and reacts to events faster. The younger ones don’t have that much experience. As a standard, a footballer needs to mature by the age of 24. Of course, some understand everything faster, others – later. Most of our team is under the age of 24, which is why mistakes are made: it is not possible to maintain the desired result until the end of the match, tactical mistakes are made. It’s just a lack of experience.
On the one hand, it hurts when this happens, on the other hand, we knew that it could happen with a young team. We need one or two more people to help us in such critical moments on the pitch. There is also a lack of funding to buy good players. Of course, we also try very hard for young players, so that they have the best possible conditions so that they can live only from football. However, as I mentioned, we still need players with experience around us so that the youth have something to learn from while playing in the team. The Wave’s budget is one of the lowest in the A-League.
– What is the situation regarding the legionnaires?
– We managed to strengthen this area. We have four: Goncalo Vieira, Renan Paulino, Mauricio Pinto, Shogo Yoshikawa.
Fans are invited
– “Banga” has long been known as a team that gathers a large group of fans. Do you feel strong support from the audience?
– There are competitions where there are more, there are times where fans gather less. Of course, they react to the weather conditions, to the results. If we were fighting for the championship title, naturally the whole stadium would be buzzing. We strongly invite the people of Gargždi and the residents of the district to support those young players, the club’s students.
I myself have been working in Bangas club for 10 years, so I feel a solid part of Bangas and I think that fans should support their team both when it is successful and when it is not successful.
The second half of the season will be very stressful, the young players feel a lot of pressure, and in order to withstand it, outside support during the matches is very important. It is important that both competitors and judges feel that pressure. Without support, it’s just us, and with strong support from the fans we would have that much needed twelfth player.
Agne ADOMAITĖ
#Banga #football #club #give #drop
– 2024-04-27 17:33:14
