xard 2 - 1 eyla11 (382956739)

Dark skies made the crowd of 34894 at XARDONET a little nervous, but the rain held off. Xander Bouwer was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Alex Chevreuil and Hans Pedersen. xard decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. The following players took the field: Cifra - Plumet, Ilasa, Presseguer - Freire, Timochkin, Osorio Castro, Kjærulff, Hakkens - Olazábal, Jansen.

A 4-5-1 alignment was the formation of choice for eyla11. They fielded: Curteanu - Calegari, Cellemme, Canavessi, Hammerschmid - Mirón, Serrano Redondo, Zubía, Baltanás, Bartoli - Escuriola.

eyla11 seemed to prefer attacking in the middle. The home crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief when H. Serrano Redondo was unable to put the ball in the net after his show of skill down the left 14 minutes into the match. He was seen beating the pitch in frustration at missing such a good chance to give his team the lead! After a fine move down the middle H. Olazábal nearly gave the home side a goal after 27 minutes. However the finishing shot went just wide. A well placed corner kick from R. Kjærulff was followed by S. Hakkens's hard but accurate header. The well executed routine resulted in a goal for xard, the score now 1 - 0. Given a free kick close to the byline, xard tried a move that loyal fans may recognise from training. A pass to the side pulled the defence out of position which let Ó. Osorio Castro slip through on goal. He didn't have to break his stride, and slipped the ball past the keeper to make it 2 - 0, 32 minutes into the game. By now, the players in xard felt that victory was guaranteed and began to play it safe, focusing on defence and not risking too much going forward. 2 - 0 was the halftime score. xard had most of the ball, with 54 percent of possession.

xard's C. Freire had an excellent opportunity after 47 minutes, shooting after receiving a pass from the right hand side, but he missed the goal by miles! After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, A. Zubía got himself booked. The manager of eyla11 was not happy. eyla11 were desperate to get a goal back and pushed forward through the middle 59 minutes into the game. After a scramble in the box, the ball dropped to J. Escuriola, who smashed it home to make the score 2 - 1. eyla11's A. Mirón was shown a yellow card for standing over the ball and blocking an opponent's quick free kick after 69 minutes. xard enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 52 percent of possession.

xard's best player was G. Timochkin. S. Hakkens was a disappointment, however. eyla11's top performer was clearly H. Serrano Redondo. F. Hammerschmid turned in a dismal performance, however. The match ends 2 - 1.