LH 1 - 5 atletic (377890136)

Weather conditions were fairly good for football, and Anfield saw a crowd turnout of 262. Costantino Bilotta was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Hauke Henhappel and Yosyp Golopupenko. LH decided to use a 3-4-3 set up. They fielded: Escrig - Kivi, Edström, Fehér - Vallverdú, Roxo, Maunu, Vittaniemi - Willassen, Castells, Biniasz.

atletic tactics involved an interesting 4-4-2 combination. The following players had been chosen: Sayrun - Fioletti, Maltés, Griño, Robinson - Zervidis, de Reiziger, Francken, Vegas - Cobos, Menéndez.

0 - 1 was the score with 2 minutes played, after N. Menéndez cut through the central defence and chipped home a goal for atletic. After 22 minutes, there was a bit of a mixup on the field as LH found themselves out of position and their organisation level dropped to passable. S. Francken received some harsh words from his coach after he acted foolishly 29 minutes into the match, probably out of lack of experience, and almost let an opponent score. Some fine movement on the left led to a atletic goal after 35 minutes, making it 0 - 2. D. Cobos was noted down as the scorer. 36 minutes into the game, LH had difficulty finding their positions and their organisation dropped to passable. With 37 minutes played, atletic put themselves up 0 - 3 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. The scorer was N. Menéndez. At this point, it was obvious that the players of atletic lowered the tempo and became more defensively oriented. It was 0 - 3 at the break. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by atletic, with 58 percent of the ball.

During the break, LH's coach went through the team's tactics yet again, getting them up to solid organisation. LH's H. Willassen found himself alone on the left side 55 minutes into the match and laid down a perfect shot - right into the arms of the keeper! N. Menéndez received a delicate pass through the home side's central defence after 57 minutes, and chipped it past the flailing keeper to score making it 0 - 4. The atletic fans went wild, whilst the home fans started to think about leaving early. That made three goals for N. Menéndez and he was marked down for the hat trick. After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, H. Roxo got himself booked. The manager of LH was not happy. After 77 minutes, O. Kivi had a good opportunity to reduce the scoreline for LH with a chance created through the middle, but wasn't cool enough. The ball went miles over the bar. After 83 minutes, H. Roxo sent the corner kick right to H. Willassen who headed it sharply past the keeper. 1 - 4! The home crowd was not impressed when N. Menéndez came in from the right, shooting hard to score after 84 minutes. atletic were now up 1 - 5. atletic had most of the ball, with 56 percent of possession.

LH's best player was M. Castells. O. Kivi was a disappointment, however. The most dominating atletic player was without a doubt D. Cobos. On the other hand, A. Maltés's play was disheartening. The match ends 1 - 5.