by Mantas Aliukonis
He is a basketball icon, a European champion, and the head coach of the Lithuanian national basketball team—but Rimas Kurtinaitis has never hidden his first love: football.
“Good football brings me more joy than even a basketball World Cup,” he says with a smile, recalling how, during his playing days at Real Madrid, FIFA President João Havelange once sent him a commemorative tie for boldly declaring that football mattered more to him than his own sport.
In a wide-ranging interview, Kurtinaitis doesn’t hold back. He speaks candidly about his love for the beautiful game, the systemic failures that have haunted Lithuanian football since independence, and his hopes—however slim—that one day he’ll see Lithuania qualify for a major tournament.
“Since I was a kid, football has been my favorite sport,” Kurtinaitis admits. “I followed Žalgiris Vilnius through their whole campaign in 1977, traveling by train from Kaunas to catch every single match.”
He still closely follows the Lithuanian national team, and the frustration is obvious.
“I once joked during a reception: ‘I just want to live long enough to see Lithuania qualify for the Euros.’ I said—don’t make me live to 150. I want to see it happen in this lifetime,” he laughs, though the sentiment runs deep.
But he’s not naive. “We’ve fallen too far behind. While others developed, we stagnated. And now it’s not just about catching up—it’s rebuilding from scratch.”
Kurtinaitis served as head of Lithuania’s Department of Physical Education and Sports (KKSD) from 1997 to 2001, and he doesn’t mince words about what went wrong.
“The collapse began with the Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF) under Vytas Dirmeikis. It became a closed structure, isolated from the rest of sport and society. Even the president and prime minister couldn’t influence it.”
He recalls bitter battles with the LFF leadership over finances, decisions, and priorities. “The Federation waited for qualifying draws not to win games—but to get Spain or Italy to bring in the big bucks through sponsorships. They didn’t care about progress on the pitch, only the revenue.”
A particularly telling anecdote: after a “bad” qualifying draw that included weaker teams like Moldova and Georgia, Dirmeikis, who had previously refused to collect KKSD funding, suddenly appeared in Kurtinaitis’ office asking for money. “Too late,” Kurtinaitis told him. “We already reallocated the funds.”
Why didn’t football follow basketball’s developmental path?
“In basketball, nearly all of us came back,” he says. “Sabonis, Marčiulionis, Chomičius—we built schools, invested our own money, trained kids. That’s how we got Kleiza, and others.”
“In football? Nothing. The best guys left, and when they came back, they gave nothing to the system. No schools. No legacy. Just silence.”
“The closure of sports boarding schools was Lithuania’s biggest mistake after independence,” Kurtinaitis claims. “They were the Soviet system’s only truly effective athlete development model. Instead of modernizing it, we scrapped it.”
He compares this with his visit to Dynamo Kyiv’s legendary base under Lobanovskyi, which included altitude chambers, media labs, and tactical analysis centers that far outpaced Lithuanian infrastructure at the time.
When asked about the national team’s ongoing losses under coach Edgaras Jankauskas, Kurtinaitis is measured but clear.
“I respect Edgaras. But in football, a 1–0 loss is like a 15-point basketball defeat. Saying ‘we only lost narrowly’ doesn’t mean much. At some point, results have to come.”
Despite it all, Kurtinaitis still hopes.
“I don’t know how strong our current generation is. But I believe in miracles. Maybe one day the sun will shine on our side of the street.”
He worries about modern youth being chauffeured to practice and wrapped in protective bubbles.
“When I was a kid, I had to switch two or three buses just to get to training. Today, everything is too easy, too safe. No hardship, no growth. That’s the real training kids need—life.”
Rimas Kurtinaitis may be a basketball man by career, but his football heart beats loud and proud. His critique is harsh but honest, rooted not in bitterness—but in hope. Hope that someday, Lithuanian football can stand proud again. And that he won’t have to wait until he’s 150 to see it.
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