Junwei 3 - 2 WinningEleven (371586121)

Dark skies made the crowd of 59812 at Junwei Arena a little nervous, but the rain held off. Eryk Sliwinski was the appointed referee with assistance provided by George Bregy and Chris Mainwaring. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Junwei. The following players had been chosen: Arizmendi - Palvadeau, Demirkoç, Bourgin - Cismaşu, Couchepin, Gërbeshi, Baarssen, García - Helfendorf, Palencia.

WinningEleven decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. Starters: Ceyssens - Stefani, bin Hassan, Wickstad - Morka, Machiels, Verşan, Jagannathan, Ibn-Jibril - Bäck, Brito.

Junwei broke through on the left 4 minutes into the game, with N. Helfendorf firing in from an acute angle to give the home side a 1 - 0 lead. After 7 minutes WinningEleven's H. Machiels contracted a slight foot injury, but didn't want to leave the game. After 12 minutes, a couple of quick and successful challenges followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area by W. García might have resulted in another goal for Junwei. However, T. Ceyssens made a spectacular save. M. Wickstad of WinningEleven received a yellow card after 18 minutes for unsportsmanlike behaviour. 19 minutes into the game, D. Gërbeshi had to leave the pitch due to a knee injury. In came A. Jain. Having been awarded a free kick in an awkward position after 20 minutes, Junwei did not go for a shot but instead fired the ball hard into the 6 yard box. After a brief tussle with his marker, T. Baarssen was able to power the ball past the keeper to make the score 2 - 0. The score became 3 - 0 at 23 minutes into the game, when Junwei were given a penalty which W. García blasted straight down the middle giving the keeper no chance! After this, you could see that the players of Junwei were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. The teams went for the halftime break at 3 - 0. Junwei enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 52 percent of possession.

Given a free kick in a difficult position after 52 minutes, Junwei tried a variation that they had practised in training. The kick was sent into the area just in front of the keeper. However, the defence were on their toes and allowed no space for a finish. WinningEleven reduced the lead after 63 minutes to 3 - 1 as S. Verşan easily chipped the ball past the home side's keeper after a dazzling play from the right. 70 minutes into the match, WinningEleven replied and reduced the lead to 3 - 2. J. Bäck scored on a marvellous cross pass coming in from the left. WinningEleven's S. Verşan left the field after 82 minutes because of a nasty blow to the shin. His replacement was A. bin Yunus. Junwei claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 59 percent.

The most dominating Junwei player was without a doubt N. Helfendorf. S. Arizmendi on the other hand, had a terrible day. J. Bäck performed admirably for WinningEleven. On the other hand, A. bin Yunus's play was disheartening. The match ends 3 - 2.