Pretender 4 - 0 Ceriba (381540658)

Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 32719 to Pretender Arena. Jędrzej Gromek was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Marnix Rambags and Kiril Nikolov. A 5-3-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Pretender. Starters: Climent - Grün, Moeslund, Colino, Nikolashin, Edwards - Rubinstein, Elstner, Zadelaar - Jākobsons, Marinangeli.

Ceriba decided to use a 4-4-2 set up. Lineup: Zubas - Trubeko, Kochiev, Erik, Brencāns - Beitiķis, Braunberģis, Balyberdin, Špors - Zhidkov, Drukmanis.

Pretender took the lead, 1 - 0, after a penalty 27 minutes into the match. C. Zadelaar scored from the penalty spot. 31 minutes into the match, the visitors' central line of defence had to look on as E. Edwards broke through, making the score 2 - 0 for Pretender. After this, you could see that the players of Pretender were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. With the clock showing 41 minutes played, a great pass from the defensive line of Ceriba resulted in a counterattack that was smoothly brought under control by K. Braunberģis in the centre of the opposition's penalty area, but his finish went high. The score became 3 - 0 at 42 minutes into the game, when Pretender were given a penalty which C. Zadelaar blasted straight down the middle giving the keeper no chance! After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, V. Nikolashin got himself booked. The manager of Pretender was not happy. K. Braunberģis seemed highly inexperienced when, after 43 minutes, he was caught dilly-dallying with the ball and allowed P. Elstner to intercept and strike home the goal for Pretender to make the score 4 - 0. 4 - 0 was the score after the first half. Pretender claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 81 percent.

V. Marinangeli had a fantastic opportunity to put Pretender up another goal 47 minutes into the match, but he fired just over the crossbar. Pretender's C. Zadelaar got himself booked for a foul. The home side's J. Jākobsons came close to extending the lead 52 minutes into the game. His shot came in from the right hand side but V. Zubas managed to save it with an unbelievable reaction stop. A late sliding challenge from V. Nikolashin was deemed to be his second yellow card offence by the referee, resulting in him being sent off, and Pretender left a man down. A. Rubinstein became the new Pretender captain. Pretender enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 76 percent of possession.

Most important Pretender player was C. Zadelaar. P. Elstner on the other hand, had a terrible day. Ceriba's best player was Y. Trubeko. V. Zubas was a disappointment, however. The match ends 4 - 0.