Piła 4 - 1 FC MU (387328618)

The weather was pretty good, and a crowd of 39283 had shown up at New Anfield for the match. Ragnar Irsjö was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Luiz Arnaldo de Almeida and Huib Hulskers. Piła decided to use a 5-3-2 set up. The following players took the field: Sakellarios - Rabiński, Ruszkiewicz, Pacześ, Biś, Lenartowski - Baerts, Petryszyn, Dańczak - Molina, Irholt.

A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for FC MU. They fielded: Fijałkowski - Gonçalves, Ibares, Angemi - Wirowski, Nehring, Baynham, Słonka, van der Giessen - Gembala, Campagnoli.

Piła clearly preferred using their ability to attack in the middle. It was an obvious ambition of FC MU to use their ability at attacking on the flanks. Piła players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. K. Petryszyn gave Piła the lead as he successfully challenged the guests' central defenders, then slotted the ball into the bottom corner, giving the keeper no chance. 1 - 0 FC MU's W. Wirowski was shown a yellow card after 12 minutes for slicing down an opponent. B. Rabiński was the unlucky victim and couldn't continue the game, so Piła's L. Szpecht had to come off the bench. The FC MU free kick 15 minutes into the match seemed wasted, as the shot was both short and off target. But was this actually a plan? The ball landed at the feet of H. Gonçalves, who was completely unmarked in the box. That's 1 - 1! Piła's K. Petryszyn tried to break through in the middle repeatedly, but couldn't get past the visitors' defenders. FC MU's M. van der Giessen left the field after 32 minutes because of a nasty blow to the shin. His replacement was R. Gołos. 1 - 1 was the halftime score. Piła claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 53 percent.

Central attacks were the recipe of the day for Piła, as they moved the ball from the wings to the middle with startling regularity. Piła took the lead 48 minutes into the game by 2 - 1, as G. Molina elegantly received a long range pass through the middle, finishing off with a half-volley shot just below the bar. Piła had a great opportunity to score following a counterattack after 64 minutes, but G. Molina's shot from the left sailed high over the bar. Piła's G. Molina put in a disappointing effort on a penalty after 74 minutes, firing just wide of the goal. Piła had a good opportunity to attack on the wing, but remembered their instructions to go for middle attacks. Cheers filled the stadium as M. Irholt broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 3 - 1 to Piła. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave L. Szpecht from Piła a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 86 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! K. Dańczak fired a shot from distance after 88 minutes, but the long shot couldn't find the net for Piła. Things were going to get worse for the visitors. M. Irholt squirmed through their central defence after 89 minutes, increasing the lead to 4 - 1. After this, you could see that the players of Piła were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. Piła had most of the ball, with 51 percent of possession.

Most important Piła player was G. Molina. On the other hand, L. Szpecht's play was disheartening. K. Baynham performed admirably for FC MU. R. Gołos turned in a dismal performance, however. The match ends 4 - 1.