Shramchester 1 - 0 Syktyvkar (387266068)

Weather conditions were fairly good for football, and Old Khimik saw a crowd turnout of 12000. Diether Kletschnig was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Seppo Lahtela and Marcin Kuźma. A 4-4-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Shramchester. They fielded: Arinushkin - Osokin, Shlyk, Lashin, Vygovskiy - Belavkin, Skrāpis, Chipurin, Zaštofs - Rogozin, Apatenko.

Syktyvkar tactics involved an interesting 4-4-2 combination. The following players took the field: Leonchenko - Burov, Soshchenko, Gurinenko, Poroshkov - Sysoenkov, Sivko, Efimov, Shakhverdov - Shchetkin, Bul.

As J. Zaštofs had, completely unprovoked, swept the legs out from under an opponent in front of a linesman, the referee gave the Shramchester player a red card without batting an eyelid. After 30 minutes Shramchester's L. Vygovskiy limped slightly after a late challenge, but he was able to continue. With 37 minutes played, seemingly due to lack of experience, V. Shlyk needlessly tripped an opponent just outside the penalty area, but the free kick that followed didn't succeed. 43 minutes into the game, A. Shakhverdov almost gave the visitors the lead, as he clipped a delicate lob over the keeper, but the ball glanced harmlessly off the crossbar. 0 - 0 was the score after the first half. Syktyvkar enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 58 percent of possession.

The guests almost went up by a goal after 57 minutes when N. Sivko came through and shot from the right. The ball bounced harmlessly off the post, though. N. Apatenko of Shramchester seemed to be floating in the air as he elegantly headed in to make the score 1 - 0 after a corner kick that was nicely executed by S. Osokin. V. Soshchenko came close to levelling the score 80 minutes into the game, as he was set up with a through ball coming in from the left, but his shot hit the post. Shramchester's S. Belavkin was shown a yellow card for standing over the ball and blocking an opponent's quick free kick after 83 minutes. The visitors almost came back with an equaliser 89 minutes into the match after a good combination down the middle, but when D. Bul tried to finish the attack, he couldn't deliver the shot hard enough to seriously challenge the keeper. Syktyvkar claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 59 percent.

N. Apatenko performed admirably for Shramchester. On the other hand, V. Shlyk's play was disheartening. The most dominating Syktyvkar player was without a doubt V. Efimov. N. Sivko was a disappointment, however. The match ends 1 - 0.