akivainois 0 - 8 Pocoes (391594980)

The crowd of 8372 turning up at vENkA F.C Arena today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Jimmy Richard was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Vítor Alçada and Andrea Parigi. akivainois decided to use a 3-5-2 set up. Starters: Warlop - Valverde, Jacob, Sohm - Lucena, Viana Neto, Frieza, Rhodin, Lindolfo - Nascimento, Jugo.

Pocoes tactics involved an interesting 3-4-3 combination. The following players took the field: Hofbauer - Brandstätter, Mendonça, Krsmanović - Rosu, Larragoiti, Zeindler, Antelo - Štamborský, Rosa Paz, de Wagt.

Today, akivainois's strategy involved concentrating on the flanks for their attacks. Pocoes seemed to prefer attacking in the middle. Pocoes took the lead after 10 minutes making the score 0 - 1. J. de Wagt placed the ball out of reach for the home side's keeper after a fine move, coming in from the left. Some fine movement on the left led to a Pocoes goal after 18 minutes, making it 0 - 2. J. de Wagt was noted down as the scorer. Pocoes's J. de Wagt made it through the home team's defence on the right hand side 23 minutes into the match. After rounding the keeper, he only had to place the ball in the unguarded goal when a defender slid in and cleared the ball off the line. With 36 minutes played, a quick exchange of passes on the left wing freed H. Brandstätter of Pocoes to slip through the defence and score another goal for the visitors. That made the score 0 - 3. At this point, it was obvious that the players of Pocoes lowered the tempo and became more defensively oriented. akivainois's F. Jugo was shown a yellow card after 41 minutes for slicing down an opponent. Due to a severely mistimed tackle, J. de Wagt of Pocoes spent some time on the grass writhing in agony before he could get up and continue the game. A drive down the left side allowed I. Krsmanović to get in close and score another goal for Pocoes after 43 minutes, taking the score to 0 - 4. 0 - 4 was the score after the first half. Pocoes claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 68 percent.

V. Hlaváč was called on to replace Pocoes's J. de Wagt after 51 minutes following a nasty collision. After 55 minutes, Pocoes's P. Zeindler burst through the central defence and let loose a cannonball of a shot, scoring for 0 - 5. R. Nascimento was struggling to make the ball dance with his usual trickery and panache, and the opposing players had little trouble shutting him down in these muddy conditions. Pocoes players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. After 69 minutes, an incisive pass through the middle gave N. Rosu a chance to increase the lead for Pocoes, and he did not disappoint. The score was then 0 - 6. The visitors nearly scored again after 75 minutes, but a superb save by L. Warlop kept M. Mendonça's free kick out of the net. J. Valverde still has a lot to learn. For instance, he should know not to make half-hearted passes in front of O. Rosa Paz, who easily scored for Pocoes, making it 0 - 7. The visitors' O. Rosa Paz took advantage of a misunderstanding between the home side's goalie and centre backs 77 minutes into the match. 0 - 8 for Pocoes. Pocoes had most of the ball, with 61 percent of possession.

C. Viana Neto performed admirably for akivainois. L. Warlop turned in a dismal performance, however. The most dominating Pocoes player was without a doubt N. Rosu. On the other hand, L. Antelo's play was disheartening. The match ends 0 - 8.