AlmavivA 3 - 2 Friulane (350854631)

17697 punters turned up at AlmavivA Arena, and despite threatening clouds on the horizon, no rain came. Evaggelos Gavropoulos was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Joel Häll and Edgar Idrobo. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for AlmavivA. They fielded: Bodenstaff - Pescetto, Clevenhaus, Iluz - Stocco, Padula, Deturres, Valat, Cordera - Starostka, Pessotto.

Friulane started off with a 4-5-1 lineup. Starters: Rocha - Šnajder, Wahlen, Tucã, Şerban - Medina Paz, Ramírez, Tato, Saturno, MacGilvray - Wochhinger.

Friulane seemed to prefer attacking in the middle. After a fine move down the middle D. Padula nearly gave the home side a goal after 5 minutes. However the finishing shot went just wide. AlmavivA's A. Stocco left the field after 10 minutes because of a nasty blow to the shin. His replacement was M. Defla. Friulane took the lead 19 minutes into the game, making the score 0 - 1 after some elegant movement down the middle. J. Šnajder was the scorer. After 21 minutes, F. Starostka sent the corner kick right to P. Valat who headed it sharply past the keeper. 1 - 1! Friulane were determined to attack in the middle, even their wing attacks ended up centrally. After 24 minutes, Friulane's I. Saturno made his way through the middle and nonchalantly placed the ball out of the keeper's reach, putting the visitors up 1 - 2. With 26 minutes having been played, AlmavivA scored to make it 2 - 2. A dribble down the left wing, followed by a shot which took a wicked bounce off a defender resulted in the keeper having no chance. Everyone thought it'd been an own goal, but G. Pessotto was marked down as the scorer. Halftime score was 2 - 2. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by AlmavivA, with 53 percent of the ball.

It was obvious that team Friulane had instructions to attack in the middle instead of on the wings. Friulane had several good opportunities to take the lead, especially 59 minutes in when R. MacGilvray came up alone against I. Bodenstaff who managed a block. Making his way up the middle 61 minutes into the match, F. Deturres almost managed to squeeze a goal past the visitors' keeper, but the alert V. Rocha blocked it to keep the score level. The celebrations in the stands could only mean one thing - F. Starostka's free kick had found the back of the net and put AlmavivA ahead 3 - 2! Friulane had a chance to level the score as R. Wochhinger suddenly found himself free in the middle of the box with only the keeper to beat, but he misjudged the finish, and only managed to hit the bar. Friulane had a good opportunity to attack on the wing, but remembered their instructions to go for middle attacks. With 77 minutes played, the visitors could have drawn level after E. Tucã came through the middle, but his kick went wide. AlmavivA claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 54 percent.

AlmavivA's best player was D. Padula. On the other hand, I. Bodenstaff's play was disheartening. Most important Friulane player was N. Ramírez. V. Rocha on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 3 - 2.