Karbala 5 - 0 African (392053392)

Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 12000 to Al Wilaya. Ciriaco Kaspar was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Carmelo Azócar and Jules Fokkert. Karbala started off with a 4-4-2 lineup. Starters: Del Valle - Brown, Summers, Ridgeway, Layne - Marcum, Howell, Britton, Fortier - Crain, Rapp.

A 4-4-2 alignment was the formation of choice for African. They fielded: Street - Ávalos, Breaux, Villalobos, Denson - Coles, Meyer, Perez, Landry - Franklin, Tan.

Karbala's D. Crain tried to break through in the middle repeatedly, but couldn't get past the visitors' defenders. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave J. Howell from Karbala a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 4 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! African were forced into a substitution as J. Breaux couldn't continue due to some rough treatment, forcing G. Humphries to come in off the bench. Some great play up the middle by Karbala led to a chance for J. Brown to score after 6 minutes, but the shot hit the crossbar. They were singing the praises of G. Marcum 16 minutes into the match after his speculative chip from the middle of the penalty box found its way over the visitors' keeper to make the score 1 - 0 to Karbala. 1 - 0 was the score after the first half. Karbala claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 57 percent.

Cheers filled the stadium as J. Layne broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 2 - 0 to Karbala. Karbala's B. Ridgeway increased the lead to 3 - 0, after he saw his shot go between the legs of the advancing goalkeeper following some good play down the right wing after 79 minutes. By now, the players in Karbala felt that victory was guaranteed and began to play it safe, focusing on defence and not risking too much going forward. J. Perez couldn't do anything to stop the technically gifted D. Crain as he dodged past on his way to scoring a wonderful goal for Karbala - 4 - 0! D. Crain had a fantastic opportunity to put Karbala up another goal 82 minutes into the match, but he fired just over the crossbar. J. Brown struck a 30 metre free kick home 84 minutes into the match. 5 - 0 for the home team. Karbala enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 61 percent of possession.

Most important Karbala player was D. Rapp. However, T. Del Valle made a disastrous appearance. The most dominating African player was without a doubt G. Humphries. C. Street was a disappointment, however. The match ends 5 - 0.