Koninklijke 5 - 1 Kladders (388527595)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 37022 at Space Dome today. Karel Goethals was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Leonid Simakov and Patrizio Garzillo. A 3-4-3 alignment was the formation of choice for Koninklijke. Lineup: Paiva - Meng, Brekveld, Dalcq - Gigante, Amorim, Macikowski, Radresa - Vis, Impilä, Kusé.

Kladders tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. The following players had been chosen: Lehtinen - Boterman, Syc, Olteanu - Ankerdal, Stolberg, Samara, Curto, Krinitskiy - Ionescu, Quintart.

Koninklijke tried to focus their attacks down the middle. Kladders saw most attack opportunities on the wings. C. Macikowski caused the crowd to go mental with his goal up the middle after 11 minutes. This gave Koninklijke the 1 - 0 lead. The corner kick from E. Gigante was powerfully met by the head of T. Impilä to make the score 2 - 0. After 20 minutes, a couple of quick and successful challenges followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area by R. Brekveld might have resulted in another goal for Koninklijke. However, S. Lehtinen made a spectacular save. Kladders had a fair chance to reply after 28 minutes due to some fine moves down the left, but in the end J. Syc was slow to keep up with the play and was unable to make it into the penalty box to apply a finish. Koninklijke players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. Koninklijke solidified their lead at the 33 minute mark, as K. Meng dribbled the ball through the opposing central defence and scored to make it 3 - 0. After this, you could see that the players of Koninklijke were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. Koninklijke's F. Kusé swung in a good chance from the left, but the visitors' defence were able to clear the ball. 3 - 0 was the halftime score. Koninklijke had most of the ball, with 64 percent of possession.

V. Krinitskiy's early cross saw the defenders caught out of position and the alert K. Quintart was able to pounce and roll the ball past the hapless goalkeeper to score for Kladders. 3 - 1. Koninklijke had a good opportunity to attack on the wing, but remembered their instructions to go for middle attacks. Cheers filled the stadium as F. Kusé broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 4 - 1 to Koninklijke. With 72 minutes played, F. Kusé of Koninklijke fell dramatically just outside the penalty area. However, the referee was unimpressed, and booked him for diving. Things were going to get worse for the visitors. F. Kusé squirmed through their central defence after 79 minutes, increasing the lead to 5 - 1. D. Dalcq had a fantastic opportunity to put Koninklijke up another goal 83 minutes into the match, but he fired just over the crossbar. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by Koninklijke, with 61 percent of the ball.

T. Impilä performed admirably for Koninklijke. N. Radresa on the other hand, had a terrible day. Kladders's top performer was clearly F. Ankerdal. On the other hand, S. Lehtinen's play was disheartening. The match ends 5 - 1.