Litit 0 - 8 Roottori (385630421)

Dark skies made the crowd of 12000 at Laajasalon nurmi aka Camp Nou a little nervous, but the rain held off. Eddie Högskog was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Julian Gröger and Dorus van Veldhuizen. Everyone was excited about the upcoming Helsinki derby and the crowd was divided evenly. A 4-4-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Litit. Starters: Särs - Leino, Laalahti, Kojola, Östermark - Pänkäälä, Sakki, Vaikkola, Vehmasto - Linnaluoma, Väärälä.

Roottori had chosen a strategic 4-4-2 formation. They fielded: Marjusaari - Zirion, Siler, Szigeti, Tuppurainen - Ruottinen, Hanuš, Takaneva, Pérez - Broniarczyk, Anttila.

Roottori mostly ignored the flanks in favour of their ability to attack in the middle. The guests took the lead 15 minutes into the match, after a right-side attack resulted in N. Ruottinen scoring to make it 0 - 1. The referee signalled a penalty 17 minutes into the game following an offence which looked like it was outside the box. S. Tuppurainen knocked it home to make the score 0 - 2. Confident in their lead, Roottori's players relaxed and focused more on defending the lead than increasing it. The home keeper was stunned 20 minutes into the match when he misjudged the free kick by S. Tuppurainen and dived in the wrong direction. The visitors increased the lead to 0 - 3. Roottori increased their lead after 23 minutes when K. Zirion broke through on the right, upping the score to 0 - 4, much to the home crowd's dismay. After 26 minutes, S. Tuppurainen sent the corner kick right to A. Anttila who headed it sharply past the keeper. 0 - 5! Roottori players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. After 28 minutes, Roottori's A. Anttila burst through the central defence and let loose a cannonball of a shot, scoring for 0 - 6. Halftime score was 0 - 6. Roottori claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 79 percent.

64 minutes into the game, Roottori worked the left side industriously creating several opportunities to add to their lead, but just couldn't apply the finishing touch. The referee showed Litit's R. Linnaluoma the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. The home crowd was not impressed when E. Broniarczyk came in from the right, shooting hard to score after 77 minutes. Roottori were now up 0 - 7. The cannonball from 35 metres by A. Anttila of Roottori was an impressive sight, but didn't make it into the net. I. Siler came close to extending the visitors' lead when he found himself completely unmarked in front of the goal after a pass through the middle. He tried to lift the ball over A. Särs but overcooked it and hit the bar instead. After 86 minutes, a mistake by the home side's left defence allowed A. Anttila to get through. He outclassed the home side's keeper, adding another goal for the visitors. 0 - 8. At that, A. Anttila was noted down for a hat trick! Roottori had most of the ball, with 83 percent of possession.

Most important Litit player was N. Vehmasto. A. Särs was a disappointment, however. C. Hanuš performed admirably for Roottori. On the other hand, H. Szigeti's play was disheartening. The match ends 0 - 8.