Linfield goalkeeper Chris Johns kept a clean sheet in his side's goalless draw in Vilnius
Linfield retain high hopes of advancing further in the Uefa Conference League after securing a 0-0 draw with Lithuanian side Zalgiris in the first leg of their second qualifying round tie in Vilnius on Thursday.
The second leg will be played at Windsor Park in Belfast on 31 July, with the winners taking on Vikingur from Iceland in the next round.
Irish Premiership champions Linfield exited the Champions League at the first qualifying round stage with a 2-1 aggregate defeat by Shelbourne last week while Zalgiris went out to Hamrun Spartans of Malta after a marathon penalty shootout in the same competition.
The visitors began the game brightly at the LFF Stadium and Kieran Offord's drive was easily gathered by Carlos Olses.
The home side responded well however and after a quarter of an hour Euan East cleared Yury Kendysh's effort off the line.
Zalgriris recycled the danger and Chris Johns stuck out his foot to divert the rebound.
The hosts continued in the ascendancy and created more opportunities, Dino Salcinovic finding space at the edge of the box and sending a rifled shot narrowly wide of the right hand post.
Johns was then forced to make a low save to thwart Machop Chol's shot from the edge of the area and the Blues stopper was off his line quickly to deny Liviu Antal the opportunity to get in a shot.
Zalgiris fashioned another scoring chance soon after the restart as Chol headed wide from Ovidijus Verbickas' cross.
The Lithuanian champions then survived a nervy moment when Olses came off his line to try and gather Ethan McGee's throw-in.
The keeper dropped the ball but Ebenezer Ofori was on hand to hoof the ball away before Linfield could take advantage of the mistake.
At the other end, David Healy's team went close to opening the scoring as Olses was down smartly to push Matthew Fitzpatrick's first-time effort out of play.
A satisfactory result for Linfield on the road and all to play for in the return fixture in seven days' time.
