Stumbras

Football Club Stumbras was a professional football club, based in Kaunas, Lithuania, which played in A Lyga, the top tier of Lithuanian football. Founded in 2013 on the basis of the NFA, the club has reached the heights of Lithuanian football in a fairly short period of time. It became infamous for one-sided footballer contracts. The club stopped functioning mid-season in 2019 after the owner pulled out the funds. The club played its home matches at the Darius and Girenas Stadium (capacity 9,180) and used the NFA stadium in Kaunas (capacity 500) as an alternative.

History

The club was established in 2013 on the basis of the Nacionaline Futbolo Akademija team, adopting the name FC Stumbras and playing in II Lyga Southern Zone. The majority of the team's players were under 20 years old. Stumbras finished 2nd in the league and were promoted to I Lyga for the next year.

In 2014 FC Stumbras was able to sign a few more experienced players to go with their youth, most notably former national team striker and Kaunas native Arturas Rimkevicius. Stumbras started out the season strongly winning the first 8 matches. In July 2014, during the break, it was announced that 3 starting squad players Martynas Zaleckis, Klaidas Janonis and Klaudijus Upstas would leave the team, Rolandas Cepkauskas becoming the new head coach was announced a few days after. FC Stumbras went on to finish the regular season 3rd, making it to the second phase. After beating FK Nevezis 4–1 in the last match of the season, Stumbras secured 1st place in the league and Arturas Rimkevicius was declared top goal scorer with 26. The last team to represent the second largest city in Lithuania in A Lyga was FBK Kaunas in 2012. FC Stumbras chairman Vytautas Vaskunas confirmed that the club would use their right to play in the top Lithuanian league in 2015 and Kaunas would have a team in A Lyga once again, he also confirmed the club would bring back Rimkevicius and would most likely strengthen the squad even more the following season.

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This page also has a version in other languages :  Стумбрас (russian)