Geordios 4 - 3 Grays (374449359)

Dark skies made the crowd of 61521 at Julio Geordios Arena a little nervous, but the rain held off. Owen Hodgson was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Rolando Calvani and Bernd Tremesberger. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Geordios. The following players had been chosen: Džovenis - Knutsson, Tienza, Hampartsoumyan - Ellard, Croft, Ruiz, Tenshin, Koroza - Kavooris, Egli.

Grays decided to use a 2-5-3 set up. They fielded: Harrison - Wijayawickrama, Hales - Ardill, Neumann, Ghafouri-Shiraz, Landi, Calpetard - Truelsen, Presley, Weisglas.

2 minutes into the match and the home team took a 1 - 0 lead after breaking through on the left. The scorer for Geordios was M. Egli. After 19 minutes, R. Weisglas sent the corner kick right to C. Hales who headed it sharply past the keeper. 1 - 1! A mistake by the home side's central defence after 24 minutes allowed F. Calpetard to score for Grays. The scoreboard now read 1 - 2. With the crowd on their feet chanting wildly, some great moves down the right hand side after 34 minutes gave Geordios a wonderful opportunity to level the score, and P. Kavooris stepped up to the challenge. 2 - 2 Grays took the lead 35 minutes into the game, making the score 2 - 3 after some elegant movement down the middle. A. Ghafouri-Shiraz was the scorer. Geordios tried to even things up by sending a long ball towards the centrally placed strikers, but the visitors' defence got the best of this rather direct style of play. The Geordios free kick 39 minutes into the match seemed wasted, as the shot was both short and off target. But was this actually a plan? The ball landed at the feet of T. Tenshin, who was completely unmarked in the box. That's 3 - 3! 3 - 3 was the score after the first half. Possession in this half belonged to Geordios, who controlled the ball 52 percent of the time.

The coach of Grays wanted to try to change things around after 46 minutes, and gave new tactical instructions. J. Presley had a good try after 55 minutes, coming in on a fine move from the left, but the ball went wide. Geordios broke through on the left 75 minutes into the game, with M. Croft firing in from an acute angle to give the home side a 4 - 3 lead. The Grays players listened closely to their manager, as he gave new tactical instructions for the team. The referee showed Geordios's P. Kavooris the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. The player down was A. Ghafouri-Shiraz. The Grays bench looked worried for a while, but in the end he managed to get up. The visitors' R. Weisglas came close to levelling the score after 81 minutes with a free kick that went just wide of the top left corner. With 82 minutes played, K. Knutsson of Geordios fell dramatically just outside the penalty area. However, the referee was unimpressed, and booked him for diving. 83 minutes into the game, Grays had difficulty finding their positions and their organisation dropped to passable. Neither team was controlling the possession at this point in the match, with the stats showing a 50:50 split.

Geordios's best player was M. Egli. J. Džovenis was a disappointment, however. J. Truelsen performed admirably for Grays. On the other hand, R. Harrison's play was disheartening. The match ends 4 - 3.