Esdiegantes 0 - 2 skorpion (366227455)

The 12000 spectators at Olympia Stadium were in for an afternoon of sunshine. Jürg Schultz was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Daniel Auer and Apostolos Lazos. Esdiegantes decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. They fielded: Mandese - Ebbinge, Simeoni, Atabey - Pozzan, Pişkin, Dolch, Godói, Ciępka - Liukkonen, Portugal.

skorpion tactics involved an interesting 4-5-1 combination. The following players took the field: Mata - Bottino, Pérez, Taskov, Fahnl - Labaj, Huttinger, Marynszyk, Ansay, Gajer - Rossoni.

The strategy for Esdiegantes was to use their ability to press. Today, skorpion's strategy involved concentrating on the flanks for their attacks. A well placed corner kick from E. Fahnl was followed by M. Marynszyk's hard but accurate header. The well executed routine resulted in a goal for skorpion, the score now 0 - 1. Some fine passing in the middle of the pitch, carving open the away defence, should have led to a goal for Esdiegantes, but A. Godói's shot went over the bar. With 25 minutes played, after a good run down the left, G. Simeoni went down looking for a penalty after a challenge from the visitors' right fullback, but the referee waved play on, and later warned him for diving. After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, M. Pozzan got himself booked. The manager of Esdiegantes was not happy. 0 - 1 was the score after the first half. Esdiegantes had most of the ball, with 52 percent of possession.

M. Gajer didn't pace himself at all, and after a series of daring offensive runs he was too tired to help out in the defensive play. L. Mandese got a fingertip on Y. Taskov's shot from the left 59 minutes in, and managed to keep the visitors from going up another goal. P. Rossoni left the field with a smile on his face as he was substituted 60 minutes into the game, as his team was in the lead. J. Poilane was the replacement. 60 minutes in, Esdiegantes's M. Pişkin received a yellow card for going into a challenge studs first. R. Dolch was just a finger's breadth away from an equaliser for Esdiegantes with a strike from the left, but J. Mata managed to ward the shot off for a corner. After 62 minutes, skorpion surprised their opponents with a breakaway counter attack. The defenders had to resort to a foul to stop it. The free kick that followed was a clever indirect effort that almost succeeded, but the defence read the situation well and the intended recipient was left ruing what might have been. The coach of skorpion was happy with the game so far, but still wanted to change the line up. After 70 minutes, M. Tufariello came on for Á. Huttinger. Although the whole team were struggling to impress, Esdiegantes's H. Ciępka was singled out as being the problem as he was called off the pitch after 70 minutes. T. Kurkinen was given a chance to change things around. Unhappy with the result so far in the game, the Esdiegantes manager used a brief break in play after 70 minutes to give the players new directives. The sun seemed to put T. Kurkinen in a great mood, and he showed off his technical skills all match long. Players in skorpion heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their central attacks to the wings instead. The home crowd was not impressed when G. Labaj came in from the right, shooting hard to score after 78 minutes. skorpion were now up 0 - 2. Content with how the game was proceeding, the skorpion coach let L. Iacono replace M. Gajer after 89 minutes. skorpion claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 52 percent.

Esdiegantes's best player was T. Kurkinen. On the other hand, M. Pozzan's play was disheartening. skorpion's top performer was clearly I. Pérez. L. Iacono was a disappointment, however. The match ends 0 - 2.