Mullen 0 - 9 viresi (392069074)

The crowd of 4800 turning up at Mullen FC Arena today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Libero Gilardi was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Vincent Charlier and Tore Stenborg. The derby had been the talk of Massachusetts all week and fans of both teams could be seen throughout the stadium. Mullen started off with a 4-4-2 lineup. Lineup: Cabrera - Bond, Rustam, Covarrubias, Irizarry - Willingham, Vollmer, Schilz, Bhatti - Gokhale, Tadaj.

viresi decided to use a 3-4-3 set up. The following players took the field: Mańko - Brandbye, Alexandre, Baštić - Pataki, Kanervala, Galun, Dent - Andersson, Escobar, Toh.

The wings were the focus of most of viresi's attacks today. T. Kanervala 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. It was obvious that viresi had instructions to attack on the wings instead of in the middle. The home crowd was not impressed by the fancy moves of viresi's N. Baštić after 14 minutes. He converted a pass from the left for a goal, resulting in the visitors taking the 0 - 1 lead. One of many good crosses from M. Dent on the wing was received and skillfully taken care of by T. Escobar, who scored for viresi. 0 - 2 The players of viresi now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. With 27 minutes played, viresi put themselves up 0 - 3 after an attack from the right, caused by a defensive blunder. The scorer was A. Alexandre. A drive down the left side allowed E. Andersson to get in close and score another goal for viresi after 39 minutes, taking the score to 0 - 4. Players in viresi heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their central attacks to the wings instead. viresi increased their lead after 41 minutes when A. Alexandre broke through on the right, upping the score to 0 - 5, much to the home crowd's dismay. Halftime score was 0 - 5. Possession in this half belonged to viresi, who controlled the ball 61 percent of the time.

After 56 minutes, a mistake by the home side's left defence allowed M. Dent to get through. He outclassed the home side's keeper, adding another goal for the visitors. 0 - 6. After 60 minutes, an incisive pass through the middle gave E. Andersson a chance to increase the lead for viresi, and he did not disappoint. The score was then 0 - 7. A. Alexandre of viresi took advantage of a mistake on the home side's right after 70 minutes which increased the away team's lead to 0 - 8. That made three goals for A. Alexandre and he was marked down for the hat trick. 74 minutes in, viresi's M. Toh received a yellow card for going into a challenge studs first. Mullen were forced into a substitution as S. Vollmer couldn't continue due to some rough treatment, forcing D. Beardsworth to come in off the bench. Some fine movement on the left led to a viresi goal after 76 minutes, making it 0 - 9. M. Toh was noted down as the scorer. viresi had most of the ball, with 60 percent of possession.

Mullen's top performer was clearly D. Beardsworth. However, T. Cabrera made a disastrous appearance. viresi's best player was T. Escobar. K. Mańko on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 0 - 9.