Lithuania's late winner stuns young Scots

Scotland paid the price yesterday for missed opportunities with their first competitive defeat in the European Under-21 Championship under their coach, Rainer Bonhof, going down 2-1 to Lithuania in Vilnius.

This was an unchanged starting line-up from the one that beat Iceland last Friday, also a game that saw the young Scots miss a host of chances. Kevin Kyle had given them a good start but their failure to add to his goal despite plenty of opportunities allowed the home side to come back and punish them. Scotland should have won this game – and they certainly should not have lost it.

Kyle had been described in the morning by the Scotland manager, Berti Vogts, as a player who could make a breakthrough to the senior side, with the German already having tried out and then discarded as too raw at that level.

It took two minutes for Kyle to give Vogts a reminder of his ability by scoring the opening goal after James McFadden, another senior-team hopeful, had set him up. It was a simple enough chance from close range, and the Sunderland reserve had little difficulty putting it away.

Lithuania managed to score from their only shot on target, a 34th-minute effort from Aurimas Kucys that was so well-placed in the bottom corner that Derek Soutar stood no chance.

This cost the Scots dearly as Lithuania went ahead against the run of play with eight minutes left on the clock. Soutar made a fine block from the substitute Hindaugas Kalonas but the rebound fell perfectly for Edgaras Cesnauskis, who blasted in from close range.

In Tirana, the Republic of Ireland wasted a good chance of recording their first win in their Under-21 Championship campaign as they dominated against Albania but conceded a breakaway goal to go down 1-0 for their third defeat in four matches.

Graham Barrett looked lively on his record-equalling 20th appearance and he set up Liam Miller for the Republic's best chance after 29 minutes, but the Celtic player's finish was disappointing – although he nearly redeemed himself when he struck a late free-kick against a post. The goal came in the 71st minutes when the substitute Erion Rizvanolli was first to a long through ball and chipped it over the advancing Graham Stack and into an empty net.

Don Givens believed that his team should have red faces after they lost to Albania, whom he described as the "poorest" team he had seen at that level. "I told them we should be ashamed of ourselves," the Irish manager said. "When you lose to a team like that, who are probably the poorest team I've seen at Under-21 level, it sums us up, it really does.

"A team of our stature shouldn't lose to that team. We might have got a goalless draw because we found it hard to score, but we don't lose to them.

'I am absolutely sick with that result. I said to them that the one thing we mustn't do is concede a goal to them, and the fact we did is scandalous. It's a killer.

"The state of the pitch was always going to make it hard for us, but you can't keep making excuses, that was dreadful and there were very few positives from my point of view."