The Union 1 - 2 Brancaleone (393017982)

The crowd of 39332 turning up at The Diving Board today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Neil Young was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Brynjar Ole Remmen and Paco Jerez. The Union had chosen a strategic 2-5-3 formation. Lineup: Toyama - Armengou, Criciúma - Sanders, Nanda, Hân, Felderhof, Achleitner - Prętki, Sermet, Añazco.

Brancaleone started off with a 4-5-1 lineup. The following players had been chosen: Schmidt - Lasa, Traganos, Couto Bueno, Falagiani - Åker, Belluardo, Montironi, Trieb, Lopez - Corvino.

Brancaleone preferred to finish off their attacks from a distance. The Union's D. Sanders had to watch the rest of the game from the sidelines, after twisting his ankle with 18 minutes having been played. V. Centrella was the replacement. After 35 minutes Brancaleone showed the crowd a glorious passing play which put C. Traganos in a perfect shooting position. His low hard shot was just as glorious, placed just inside the keeper's right post making it 0 - 1. G. Achleitner was just a finger's breadth away from an equaliser for The Union with a strike from the left, but K. Schmidt managed to ward the shot off for a corner. The corner kick from R. Couto Bueno was powerfully met by the head of A. Montironi to make the score 0 - 2. A penalty kick was awarded to The Union 44 minutes into the match, and J. Criciúma expertly put it away. 1 - 2. 1 - 2 was the halftime score. Brancaleone claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 53 percent.

E. Corvino left the field with a smile on his face as he was substituted 70 minutes into the game, as his team was in the lead. I. Portolés was the replacement. It was obvious that the tactic of the day for Brancaleone was to go for long shots, but in order to score they have to do better than the shooting attempt from J. Lasa after 79 minutes, which was a total failure. The visitors nearly scored again after 83 minutes, but a superb save by N. Toyama kept R. Couto Bueno's free kick out of the net. The coach of Brancaleone was happy with the game so far, but still wanted to change the line up. After 89 minutes, L. Courtman came on for K. Schmidt. Brancaleone had most of the ball, with 51 percent of possession.

The Union's best player was D. Prętki. On the other hand, V. Centrella's play was disheartening. L. Courtman performed admirably for Brancaleone. A. Montironi on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 1 - 2.