FK Kauno Žalgiris forward Motiejus Burba says a series of painful disappointments in England helped shape the player who has now broken into the Lithuania men’s national team.
The 22-year-old, who received his first senior call-up at the end of 2025 and has remained involved with the squad in 2026, told Kauno Žalgiris’ podcast that his early ambition took him to the “birthplace of football” after moving to England with his family as a child.
Burba said his route into the academy game began almost by accident, when his father found a local youth side in Tunbridge Wells and the teenager arrived late for his first match.
“At the start, while we were sorting everything out, we lived with friends to make it easier,” Burba said. “Then we went to Tunbridge Wells and my dad found some team in the papers or adverts so I could play. It was a children’s Sunday league and the funniest thing is we were 10 minutes late for the first game.
“For the first time, a Crystal Palace scout came to a match at that level and I scored with a backheel into the top corner. After the game we spoke and my time in the Crystal Palace system began.”
Burba spent around 18 months linked with Palace but said he never received a professional contract, citing bureaucracy and the lack of “international clearance” as a barrier.
“I was on trial there for a year and a half,” he said. “A trial can last up to six months and you can extend it three times. That’s how long I stayed because I didn’t have international clearance. For foreigners in England it happens, but I don’t know what the real situation was, you’d have to ask my parents.”
“After that came a marathon of trials. I travelled everywhere: to League One and League Two academy clubs.”
The most difficult moment, Burba added, came during a trial at Brighton, when he believed a first professional deal was close.
“After Crystal Palace I was on trial at Brighton, but it ended very sadly,” he said. “They said the trial would last four weeks, and after three I was called up to Lithuania’s Under-17s.”
“They said: ‘Oh, the national team. Nobody our age plays for national teams yet, that’s great. When you come back, we’ll sign a two-year contract.’ From 14 to 16 you can already get paid there and school is arranged around it. You become a professional.”
“I arrived with the national team smiling because I was going to sign a contract with Brighton.”
He said the mood changed when he returned to England after two weeks away.
“My parents had dressed up too, because it wasn’t often like that,” Burba said. “They gave a lot, they had to work nights just so I could play football.”
“But when I went into the office after the match, the academy director said I was a good player and they liked everything, but we wouldn’t sign a contract. We didn’t understand anything. Sitting in the café afterwards, there were tears.”
“Trials always went well, everyone said I was good, but a contract never came.”
Burba later played for Sevenoaks in England before returning to Lithuania in 2019.
