Eagles 2 - 5 Niafron (370360834)

The crowd of 16765 turning up at Red Eagles Arena today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Fotis Orfanoudakis was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Rodrigo Nunes and Mogens Bentsen. Eagles started off with a 2-5-3 lineup. They fielded: Palierne - Stampacchia, Schabler - Bermüller, Rabiller, Petersen, de la Morena, Gonzalez - Macquart, Mušan, Solórzano.

A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Niafron. Starters: Preta - Lang, Siemieniecki, van der Zalm - Fazzi, Bravo, Szalai, Łepka, Vidigal - Nonneman, Redemien.

Niafron were mostly trying to use their skill at attacking on the flanks. The game was characterised by rough play and many physical challenges on the wet field, but F. Siemieniecki showed great heart and had a good game. After 9 minutes of play, S. Macquart gave the home team a 1 - 0 lead after an attack coming in from the right. F. Lang neatly controlled the ball after a short corner, and knocked it on to F. Siemieniecki who had the whole net open before him, but only managed to hit the post. The crowd was silenced 24 minutes into the match as the visiting team's F. Siemieniecki came in from the left, levelling the score to 1 - 1. The visitors' central defence should have had no trouble clearing the pass to V. Mušan, but the Eagles player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead. 2 - 1! After 37 minutes, the visitors tied it up at 2 - 2 when a fantastic pass from the left was finished off by V. Vidigal. The referee showed Eagles's C. de la Morena the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. 2 - 2 was the halftime score. Possession in this half belonged to Niafron, who controlled the ball 56 percent of the time.

Some good play on the left wing created an opportunity for the visitors 49 minutes into the match, and K. Redemien wasn't about to let it go by. He got past the defenders and fired a shot that the keeper just missed. 2 - 3 for the visitors. K. Redemien of Niafron took advantage of a mistake on the home side's right after 70 minutes which increased the away team's lead to 2 - 4. With 75 minutes played, Niafron put themselves up 2 - 5 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. The scorer was R. Łepka. By now, the players in Niafron felt that victory was guaranteed and began to play it safe, focusing on defence and not risking too much going forward. Niafron claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 62 percent.

Most important Eagles player was V. Mušan. E. Stampacchia turned in a dismal performance, however. F. Siemieniecki performed admirably for Niafron. However, L. Preta made a disastrous appearance. The match ends 2 - 5.