Soldiers 1 - 1 kostn (365834585)

Overcast weather free of rain made for a crowd turnout of 42629 at Pilsen Royal Stadium today. Dick Munn-Giddings was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Erkki Karttula and Dirk Botteron. Soldiers tactics involved an interesting 2-5-3 combination. They fielded: Balga - Machan, Spálenka - Kolář, Vrba, Gajda, Hrůza, Štafa - Brčák, Buršík, Kutra.

kostn started off with a 3-5-2 lineup. Starters: Caniglia - Harthoorn, O´Caster, Soto Barón - Švancara, Farkas, Bahrenfeld, Muñoz, Trischitta - Gürleyen, Nakano.

Soldiers seemed to prefer attacking in the middle. kostn used their ability to concentrate their attacks in the middle of the pitch, rather than on the wings. At 19 minutes played, R. Štafa came in from the right with the intention of giving Soldiers the lead, but his rocket of a shot rattled the crossbar. kostn's D. Muñoz got himself booked for a foul. A loud groan was heard from the fans of Soldiers, as L. Vrba left the pitch in too much pain to finish the match. J. Novotný took his place on the field. R. Jover was called on to replace kostn's E. Harthoorn after 26 minutes following a nasty collision. Soldiers had a good opportunity to attack on the wing, but remembered their instructions to go for middle attacks. The visitors' central defence should have had no trouble clearing the pass to V. Kutra, but the Soldiers player managed to shrug them off and fired a low shot past the keeper to give his team the lead. 1 - 0! After 32 minutes, a couple of quick and successful challenges followed by a shot from just outside the penalty area by V. Kutra might have resulted in another goal for Soldiers. However, A. Caniglia made a spectacular save. The teams went for the halftime break at 1 - 0. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by Soldiers, with 53 percent of the ball.

After 64 minutes kostn's E. Švancara contracted a slight foot injury, but didn't want to leave the game. One of many good crosses from F. Trischitta on the wing was received and skillfully taken care of by N. Nakano, who scored for kostn. 1 - 1 kostn players heard their coach's words ringing in their ears and steered their wing attacks to the middle instead. Down the middle came N. Nakano, making a fantastic play that nearly had kostn take the lead after 87 minutes, but M. Balga preserved the tie. Neither team was controlling the possession at this point in the match, with the stats showing a 50:50 split.

Soldiers's best player was M. Gajda. L. Spálenka on the other hand, had a terrible day. B. Farkas performed admirably for kostn. On the other hand, R. Jover's play was disheartening. The match ends 1 - 1.