Benjaminas Zelkevičius (born 6 February 1944) is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

coach and a former striker from

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

. He is currently the technical director at FM Ateitis. Zelkevičius has been manager of the

Lithuania national football team The Lithuania national football team ( lt, Lietuvos nacionalinė futbolo rinktinė) represents Lithuania in international football and is controlled by the Lithuanian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Lithuania. They playe ...

on three separate occasions: from 1990–1991, 1995–1997, and 2001–2002. As player he had played 331 matches for the

FK Žalgiris Vilnius FK or fk may refer to: In arts and entertainment: * Flyer Killer, fictional automated robots in the ''Terminator'' film franchise. * Fox Kids, a former American children's television programming block. * Funky Kong, a video game character. Place ...

(50 goals). He had coached also

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n football club

FC Baltika Kaliningrad FC Baltika is an association football club based in Kaliningrad, Russia. Currently the club plays in the Russian First League, the second tier of the Russian football pyramid. History The club was founded on 22 December 1954 as ''Pishchevik Kalin ...

. During his playing career, he played for

FC Shakhtar Donetsk Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk ( uk, Футбольний клуб «Шахтар» Донецьк , short nickname "miners") is a Ukrainian professional football club from the city of Donetsk. In 2014, due to the War in Donbass, the club was ...

in the

Soviet Top League The Soviet Top League, known after 1970 as the Higher League (russian: Чемпионат СССР по футболу: Высшая лига), served as the top division of Soviet Union football from 1936 until 1991. The professional top level ...

and for

FK Žalgiris Futbolo klubas Žalgiris, commonly known as FK Žalgiris, Žalgiris Vilnius or simply Žalgiris, is a Lithuanian professional football club based in Vilnius. The club competes in the A Lyga, the top flight of Lithuanian football. The club wa ...

Vilnius in the

Soviet First League The Soviet First League in football (russian: Первая лига СССР по футболу) was the second highest division of Soviet football,Evgeni Kazakov. The Soviet First Football League (Первая лига СССР по футбо ...

Post-managing career

From September 2009 through 2010 Zelkevičius was coaching at FM Ateitis youth academy. On 12 August 2019, he became Ateitis' technical director. Since 2015, Zelkevičius also is chair of the Lithuanian Football Coaches Council.

Honours

* Baltic Cup **

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

Champion of Latvia 2005

References

1944 births Living people Soviet footballers Lithuanian footballers Association football forwards Soviet Top League players FK Žalgiris players FC Shakhtar Donetsk players FK Žalgiris managers FK Liepājas Metalurgs managers Soviet football managers Lithuanian football managers Lithuanian expatriate football managers FC KAMAZ Naberezhnye Chelny managers FC Shinnik Yaroslavl managers FC Baltika Kaliningrad managers FC Luch Vladivostok managers Russian Premier League managers Lithuanian expatriate sportspeople in Latvia Expatriate football managers in Russia Lithuania national football team managers {{Lithuania-footy-bio-stub