lkmnb 0 - 1 BG (250616740)

Dark skies made the crowd of 44484 at lkmnb Arena a little nervous, but the rain held off. Tevfik Terek was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Abdoulaye Ndiaye and Folkert Holdorp. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for lkmnb. Starters: Sjue - Hapon, Sjögren, Viziņš - Beck, Stezkha, Ossa, Mannl, Panduro - Geoffroy, Guzowski.

BG tactics involved an interesting 4-3-3 combination. The following players had been chosen: Gül - Bēteris, Vagels, Kantser, Kopyl - Rolšteins, Vankovskis, Splinter - Strods, Gauja, Poryadkov.

BG clearly had decided to counter-attack when they could. Good work by the BG defensive line after 6 minutes produced a good counterattack chance, which cut elegantly down the middle of the pitch and found D. Kopyl alone in front of the goal, but his shot whistled just wide. The referee showed BG's D. Rolšteins the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. A loud groan was heard from the fans of lkmnb, as A. Sjögren left the pitch in too much pain to finish the match. S. Kvarnlius took his place on the field. With the clock showing 31 minutes played, a great pass from the defensive line of BG resulted in a counterattack that was smoothly brought under control by D. Bēteris in the centre of the opposition's penalty area, but his finish went high. After 35 minutes, there was a bit of a mixup on the field as BG found themselves out of position and their organisation level dropped to poor. It was 0 - 0 at the break. lkmnb claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 72 percent.

The coach gave his players an extra tactical briefing during the break, and after that BG had passable organisation. 58 minutes into the match, the visiting BG made the score 0 - 1 after K. Vankovskis executed a perfect free kick. 70 minutes into the game, E. Guzowski came close to levelling the score with a dangerous shot from the centre of the area that went just over the bar. On any other day, M. Stezkha's free kick would have found the back of the net to tie the game for lkmnb, but not today - the visitors' keeper displayed extraordinary reflexes as he blocked the shot harmlessly to the side. 77 minutes into the game, BG seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion and they fell to a weak level of organisation. Possession in this half belonged to lkmnb, who controlled the ball 69 percent of the time.

J. Mannl performed admirably for lkmnb. S. Kvarnlius on the other hand, had a terrible day. BG's top performer was clearly F. Splinter. On the other hand, V. Kantser's play was disheartening. The match ends 0 - 1.