Champ. 6 - 0 TEAM (392926564)

Dark skies made the crowd of 2552 at Bollicine sexy arena a little nervous, but the rain held off. Gábor Gressó was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Raphaël Rufner and Patrizio Garzillo. Champ. started off with a 4-4-2 lineup. They fielded: Minoia - Massobrio, Insinga, Frizione, Florean - Marani, Betti, Falappa, Gitti - Lagonegro, Vieri.

TEAM tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. The following players took the field: Feijó - LaBastide, Minvielle, Goulbourn - Abbot, Wilhellam, Mais, Skinner, Sweeting - Crook, Hutchings.

Champ. tried to focus their attacks down the middle. Today, TEAM's strategy involved concentrating on the flanks for their attacks. G. Vieri caused the crowd to go mental with his goal up the middle after 9 minutes. This gave Champ. the 1 - 0 lead. After 10 minutes, the away team failed to deal with a good exchange of passes on the right, and G. Vieri gave the Champ. supporters even more to cheer about when he increased the lead to 2 - 0. S. Marani looked to be heading one way when he unexpectedly passed the ball to S. Gitti. The move caught everyone off-guard, including his teammate, who panicked and kicked the ball out of play by accident. Cheers filled the stadium as S. Gitti broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 3 - 0 to Champ.. 32 minutes into the match, the visitors' central line of defence had to look on as G. Vieri broke through, making the score 4 - 0 for Champ.. By then G. Vieri had scored three goals - a hat trick! 4 - 0 was the halftime score. Champ. claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 74 percent.

Some things can only be learned through experience, and E. Betti should take his lesson to heart after nearly gifting TEAM a goal with 62 minutes of the match played. Champ. put themselves up 5 - 0 when M. Insinga broke through on the right, leaving the entire defence trailing in his wake. The players of Champ. now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. The referee showed Champ.'s G. Florean the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. After 77 minutes, E. Betti put Champ. ahead 6 - 0 when he rose to head in a cross from the right wing. The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave L. Wilhellam from TEAM a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 78 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient! Against a lesser team, Champ. could very well have succeeded with their smart indirect free kick routine after 79 minutes. A trio of passes took the ball all the way past the defenders, but by then the intended recipient was already blocked off and the keeper could make a leisurely save. TEAM's A. Mais left the field after 80 minutes because of a nasty blow to the shin. His replacement was J. Daley. E. Betti could have increased the lead after 83 minutes, but his shot hit the post after a nice combination in the middle of the park. Champ. enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 79 percent of possession.

Most important Champ. player was A. Lagonegro. S. Gitti was a disappointment, however. TEAM's top performer was clearly M. Hutchings. C. LaBastide turned in a dismal performance, however. The match ends 6 - 0.