History
Originally the team was founded in 1960 as Banga Kaunas. After Lithuania regained its independence the club was restructured. In 1993 Banga Kaunas was renamed Žalgiris Kaunas and then FBK Kaunas. The baseball section added (which later separated and became BK Lituanica Kaunas), hence the original name in Lithuanian is Kauno futbolo beisbolo klubas. FBK Kaunas are sponsored by Ūkio bankas, a bank which has Vladimir Romanov as its principal shareholder. In October 2005 Mr Romanov became the majority shareholder of Scottish Premier League side, Heart of Midlothian. Romanov has since used Kaunas as a feeder club for Hearts by allowing the SPL side to loan many players, such as Edgaras Jankauskas, Bruno Aguiar, Andrius Velička, Nerijus Barasa, Marius Žaliūkas and Roman Bednář, the latter signing a permanent deal for Hearts on 31 August 2006. Kaunas have played Celtic, Rangers and Liverpool in Champions League qualifying stages. On 5 August 2008, FBK Kaunas defeated Rangers, 2–1, to advance to the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League for the first time. The game was won in dramatic circumstances as Kaunas had to come from behind and finally took the lead just four minutes from time. Linas Pilibaitis was the scorer.
Read more about this topic: FBK Kaunas
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“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
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“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
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“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)