Athletic 3 - 1 YELLOW (390050623)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 54981 at The Ayerside today. Paco De Miguel was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Brage Normann and Rudi Gräfelfing. Athletic started off with a 3-5-2 lineup. They fielded: Birney - Williams, Pace, Satyakam - Laurin, Newman Spaul, Baxendale, Cleary, Lampard - Skinner, Veasey.

YELLOW had chosen a strategic 3-5-2 formation. The following players took the field: Hegre - Højbjerg, Davidson, Vinton - Smith, Cameron, Namnieks, MacCodrum, 超福 (Chaofu) - Keir, Jakes.

The visitors' central defence should have had no trouble clearing the pass to A. Laurin, but the Athletic player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead. 1 - 0! Athletic solidified their lead at the 11 minute mark, as F. Baxendale dribbled the ball through the opposing central defence and scored to make it 2 - 0. A. Satyakam should probably have put his team up another goal after 30 minutes, but some great goalkeeping by O. Hegre kept the visitors in the game. 2 - 0 was the halftime score. Possession in this half belonged to Athletic, who controlled the ball 55 percent of the time.

With 47 minutes gone, Athletic had a free kick in a decent position. Despite this being a great chance for a shot, they tried a cheeky move intended to bypass the defence. However, M. Skinner did not manage to connect with it cleanly and the ball went out. 48 minutes in, YELLOW's E. Keir received a yellow card for going into a challenge studs first. A well placed corner kick from J. MacCodrum was followed by A. Namnieks's hard but accurate header. The well executed routine resulted in a goal for YELLOW, the score now 2 - 1. Athletic's A. Satyakam had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines, after twisting his ankle with 56 minutes having been played. A. Catterall was the replacement. After 63 minutes, a couple of quick and successful challenges followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area by F. Baxendale might have resulted in another goal for Athletic. However, O. Hegre made a spectacular save. A. Cameron of YELLOW received a yellow card after 64 minutes for unsportsmanlike behaviour. A. Namnieks came close to levelling the score 72 minutes into the game, as he was set up with a through ball coming in from the left, but his shot hit the post. Unhappy with the result so far in the game, the YELLOW manager used a brief break in play after 75 minutes to give the players new directives. YELLOW needed a fresh pair of legs on the field, and after 78 minutes A. Namnieks made way for A. Herzele. The YELLOW coach was desperate to reverse his team's fortunes in the game, and ordered his team to change strategy. After 82 minutes, W. Lampard put Athletic ahead 3 - 1 when he rose to head in a cross from the right wing. After this, you could see that the players of Athletic were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. Athletic had most of the ball, with 55 percent of possession.

The most dominating Athletic player was without a doubt M. Skinner. A. Catterall was a disappointment, however. E. Keir performed admirably for YELLOW. On the other hand, A. Vinton's play was disheartening. The match ends 3 - 1.