F.C.ANAIS 2 - 4 GRAMENET (383144373)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 8201 at F.C.Kate´s today. Bobo Böttner was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Maxim Cubreacov and Gino Rosenast. F.C.ANAIS tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. Lineup: Talker - Mocanu, Ben-Ari, Höllbauer - Brutsaert, Bjerke, Liontaris, Geukens, Ascenzi - Théobald, Allinger.

GRAMENET decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. The following players had been chosen: Lumaj - Chierici, Ciglione, Ricciardi - Smulders, Valk, Kiikka, Stroobandts, Glacet - Sagué, Fresneda.

The wings were the focus of most of GRAMENET's attacks today. It was obvious that GRAMENET had instructions to attack on the wings instead of in the middle. GRAMENET's C. Fresneda gave the visitors a 0 - 1 lead after 13 minutes with a superb strike from the right. After several obvious shirt pulling incidents, J. Brutsaert got himself booked. The manager of F.C.ANAIS was not happy. After 38 minutes a well-practised indirect free kick routine by GRAMENET was easily anticipated by the defenders. The players forward were so well marked, they were left with few viable options. Clever play that showed his experience gave J. Brutsaert a good chance to score, but the shot hit the crossbar. T. Höllbauer showed the skills that make him a real crowd pleaser as he, after 41 minutes, wove through the guests' entire central defence and put the 1 - 1 equaliser away. S. Geukens's lack of experience almost gave GRAMENET a goal after 42 minutes, but the shot went right into the keeper's arms. 1 - 1 was the halftime score. F.C.ANAIS claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 56 percent.

GRAMENET had a good opportunity to attack in the middle, but remembered their instructions to focus on wing attacks instead. The guests took the lead 47 minutes into the match, after a right-side attack resulted in G. Sagué scoring to make it 1 - 2. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave G. Théobald from F.C.ANAIS a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 49 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! The crowd chanted their encouragement as F.C.ANAIS's J. Bjerke came in from the right after 66 minutes and put the ball in the net to level the score at 2 - 2. GRAMENET were determined to attack on the wing and their central attempts were constantly abandoned in favour of the wings. After 68 minutes, GRAMENET put themselves up 2 - 3, as D. Glacet finished off a strike from the left with a real cannonball of a shot. S. Geukens charged down the left and had a wonderful opportunity to score the equaliser for F.C.ANAIS, but the shot went well wide of the goal. With 77 minutes played, G. Sagué nearly put the visitors another one up as he broke through in the middle and fired from just outside the box, but his shot passed just over the bar. 81 minutes in, GRAMENET's T. Kiikka received a yellow card for going into a challenge studs first. F.C.ANAIS were forced into a substitution as A. Talker couldn't continue due to some rough treatment, forcing 李. 文胜 (Wensheng) to come in off the bench. Attacking on the wings was the choice for GRAMENET, and they were successfully passing the ball from the middle to the wings to attack. A drive down the left side allowed D. Glacet to get in close and score another goal for GRAMENET after 83 minutes, taking the score to 2 - 4. After this, you could see that the players of GRAMENET were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by F.C.ANAIS, with 52 percent of the ball.

F.C.ANAIS's top performer was clearly J. Bjerke. 李. 文胜 (Wensheng) on the other hand, had a terrible day. Most important GRAMENET player was G. Sagué. U. Chierici was a disappointment, however. The match ends 2 - 4.