Lithuanian veteran Ivanauskas retires

Valdas Ivanauskas, the former Lithuanian international midfield player, is to take up coaching after announcing his retirement from football.

Academy place
Ivanauskas, who was capped four times by the former Soviet Union before making 23 appearances for Lithuania, has won a place in a sports academy in the German city of Köln.

Strong competition
Ivanauskas said: "I thought I only had a slight chance of admission, with 400 former players and other specialists competing for 27 spots. Now, if everything goes OK, I will receive a professional coaching licence in the highest category as early as this autumn."

National coaching ambition
His eventual ambition is to become a successor to his own former coach, Benjaminas Zelkevicius, at the helm of Lithuanian national side.

Austria move
Ivanauskas, who played for FK Zalgiris Vilnius back in the days of the former Supreme Soviet League, left pre-independence Lithuania for FK Austria Wien in 1990, before joining Hamburger SV in 1993. In 1997, he rejected a move to VfL Wolfsburg and returned to Austria to join SV Austria Salzburg, a move he now regrets.
 
'Biggest mistake I ever made'
"This was probably the biggest mistake I ever made," the 35-year-old said. "It is easy to quit the [1.] Bundesliga, but it is very hard to go back." He later returned to Germany but only played in the lower divisions, most recently with BV Cloppenburg.