Farrugia’s young guns out to maintain positive start

Energised by their gutsy performance in the goalless draw against Finland, Malta U-21 have fixed their sights on another positive result when they take on Lithuania in their second Group Two qualifier in Siauliai, today (kick-off 5 p.m.).

Since taking over the reins of the Malta U-21 squad for a second time in January, coach Ray ‘Żażu’ Farrugia has been on a mission to raise the players’ erstwhile frail self-belief.

His efforts are reaping the desired dividends as his young guns followed up the 1-1 draw in a home friendly against Monte-negro with a creditable showing in Finland on Friday.

Typically, coach Farrugia is upbeat about Malta’s chances of extending their positive start to their 2011/13 UEFA Under-21 Championship qualifying cam-paign.

“I believe everything is possible,” Farrugia told The Times from Lithuania.

“It’s a difficult task but certainly not impossible. If we manage to replicate our performance against Finland and, perhaps, improve it by as little as 10 per cent, we would certainly have a very good chance against Lithuania.”

The showing of the U-21s in Finland justified Farrugia’s opti-mistic talk before the game.

The former Sliema and Pietà coach admitted that comments in the Finnish media that their U-21s were happy to play minnows Malta in their opening qualifier only served to reinforce their determination.

“It was a very satisfactory result for us,” Farrugia reflected.

“Before the game, the news-papers reported that it was good that Finland were opening their campaign with a match against Malta because that virtually guaranteed them the three points, they argued.

“But that strengthened our desire to do well. A draw against Finland is a good result for Malta, especially when you consider that they have players with clubs in Italy, Holland, England and Germany.”

Maltese sides usually find it difficult to cope with the physical and psychological demands of playing two away internationals in five days but Farrugia believes his team are up for the challenge.

“It’s tough for the boys but as I said before Finland, our preparations for these games have been very good,” Farrugia said.

“My main concern now is to keep the players’ feet on the ground because it’s easy to get carried away after a good result.

“Lithuania play a more direct game compared to Finland but from what we’ve seen, the Finns are better technically.”

Lithuania lost 1-0 at home to Slovenia in their opening qualifier.

The Maltese contingent tra-velled to their new destination the day after their qualifier in Valkeakoski. Farrugia said the players are focused on the game but bemoaned the slight disrup-tions they faced since arriving in Lithuania.

“The players are concentrating on the game,” Farrugia said.

“We’ve had a few difficulties as the journey was quite tiring and the training pitch we had on Sunday was disastrous.

“In fact, we have complained to UEFA about this.”

Farrugia will make only change from the Finland game with Bjorn Kristensen replacing Miguel Ciantar who suffered a minor groin injury on Friday.

Kristensen’s inclusion is testa-ment to Farrugia’s readiness to put his trust in young players as, together with Pietà’s Zach Muscat, the Hibs midfielder is still eligible to play for the Malta U-19s.

Malta formation: S. Sultana, Z. Muscat, O. Bugeja, Y. Camilleri, M. Gauci, R. Muscat, C. Borg, T. Caruana, B. Kristensen, L. Grech, T. Vella.

Referee: Petur Reinert (Faroe Islands FA).