blaue 1 - 0 Elevator (384453684)

The weather was pretty good, and a crowd of 19026 had shown up at Multi Arena for the match. Emmanuel Pomatta was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Guillaume Pocholle and Péter Csábi. Fans of both teams had been eagerly awaiting this Nordrhein-Westfalen derby and were doing their best to outshout their opponents. blaue decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. Lineup: Pastonchi - Katz, Gunsch, Bajer - Fehr, Grimaldi, van Weelie, Balikonis, Névès - Glanvall, Ciechański.

Elevator had chosen a strategic 4-5-1 formation. The following players took the field: Cruz - Kúnev, Lupo, Tønnesen, Svensson - Keklik, Rybikov, Stange-Schirmer, Ebenhöch, Emmerich - Torre.

Today, Elevator's strategy involved concentrating on the flanks for their attacks. blaue made a bid to take the lead as a ball coming in on the right hand side left H. Ciechański completely alone with keeper C. Cruz, who made a spectacular block. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave J. Tønnesen from Elevator a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 17 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! With 25 minutes played H. Ciechański almost put the home team one ahead on a cross coming in from the right, but the shot went just wide. After 29 minutes, the visitors nearly went up a goal, but C. Keklik's free kick hit the crossbar. They were singing the praises of T. Bajer 34 minutes into the match after his speculative chip from the middle of the penalty box found its way over the visitors' keeper to make the score 1 - 0 to blaue. 1 - 0 was the halftime score. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by blaue, with 64 percent of the ball.

Unhappy with the result so far in the game, the Elevator manager used a brief break in play after 60 minutes to give the players new directives. blaue had a magnificent opportunity after 74 minutes as B. van Weelie hit the ball hard from the edge of the penalty box. However, the shot went wide. Elevator almost scored after a swift counterattack 75 minutes into the game, but O. Stange-Schirmer put the shot from the left flank just outside the goal. blaue's H. Ciechański got himself booked for a foul. The player down was C. Keklik. The Elevator bench looked worried for a while, but in the end he managed to get up. T. Bajer could have increased the lead after 84 minutes, but his shot hit the post after a nice combination in the middle of the park. M. Grimaldi of blaue received a yellow card after 89 minutes for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Elevator's O. Stange-Schirmer had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines, after twisting his ankle with 89 minutes having been played. A. Emin was the replacement. N. Gunsch should probably have put his team up another goal after 89 minutes, but some great goalkeeping by C. Cruz kept the visitors in the game. blaue enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 65 percent of possession.

blaue's best player was B. van Weelie. E. Pastonchi turned in a dismal performance, however. The most dominating Elevator player was without a doubt E. Torre. On the other hand, P. Emmerich's play was disheartening. The match ends 1 - 0.