Playing position Years Team Name Saulius Mikoliunas Height 1.79 m | Number 13 2002–2003 Sviesa Vilnius Role Footballer Weight 72 kg | |
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Date of birth (1984-05-02) 2 May 1984 (age 31) Place of birth Vilnius, Lithuanian SSR Current teams FC Shakhtyor Soligorsk (#13 / Midfielder), Lithuania national football team (Midfielder) Similar People Tadas Kijanskas, Deividas Cesnauskis, Marius Zaliukas, Vytautas Andriuskevicius, Mindaugas Kalonas | ||
Saulius mikoli nas nesidairome savo prie ininkus
Saulius Mikoliūnas (born 2 May 1984 in Vilnius, Lithuanian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Lithuanian professional footballer playing for Žalgiris Vilnius. He is a Lithuanian international and has played for Scottish Premier League club Hearts and FBK Kaunas. Mikoliūnas also represented Lithuania at under-21 level.
Contents
Hearts
On 2 March 2005, during a match against Rangers at Tynecastle Stadium, Mikoliūnas received a double red card from referee Hugh Dallas. The player was initially sent off for barging linesman Andy Davis after a controversial penalty decision. He received a second card for later swearing at Dallas. Since that incident, Mikoliūnas has been sent off twice more against Rangers, both as a second-half substitute.
Mikoliūnas was a regular in the first team for Hearts, however inconsistency always dogged his Hearts career. He silenced many critics with the winner at Tynecastle vs city rivals Hibernian on 26 December 2006. Mikoliūnas announced on 2 December 2008 that he wanted to leave the Edinburgh club after the 2008–09 season, to take up a new football challenge after spending four years at the club. On 27 April 2009, it was confirmed with immediate effect that the midfielder and his Lithuanian colleague Deividas Česnauskis had left Hearts.
The following month, Mikoliūnas states he was to sign for Swansea City on a free transfer during the summer transfer window, but the move broke down after Swansea manager Roberto Martínez moved to Wigan Athletic.
Eventually, Mikoliūnas signed a three-year contract with Ukrainian side Arsenal Kyiv.
Position
Mikoliūnas is a right-sided winger who sometimes plays in the right-back position.
Honours
FBK Kaunas
Hearts FC
FK Žalgiris
International
Mikoliūnas has scored five times in his twelve-year international career. Having made his debut in 2004, he scored his first international goal in 2007 against Georgia. He followed that up a year later with a second goal, against Romania. On 11 October 2013, in 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualification he scored his most recent goal: against Latvia in a 2-0 home vicotry.
Every time that Mikoliūnas has scored for Lithuania, the team have won the match and kept a clean-sheet.
In 2011, he scored again against Poland before in a surprising 2-0 win.