Lords 2 - 1 Toledo (370700503)

The crowd of 37770 turning up at Castland Memorial today were greeted with some nasty showers of rain. Henning Vidriksen was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Mirosław Zbijowski and Egon Levgrün. A 3-5-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Lords. The following players had been chosen: Năstasă - Vojnović, Juster, Värilä - Tyunyakov, Felizardo, Carriço, Carneiro, Jahl - Murga, Arancibia.

Toledo started off with a 5-3-2 lineup. The following players took the field: Jaén - Rabouça, Sriprathum, Massenzio, Serek, Teixeira - Corrao, Eriksson, Tronc - Zeschau, Malmstedt.

Lords saw most attack opportunities on the wings. Using their counter-attacking abilities was the strategy of choice for Toledo. Lords took the lead after 15 minutes as a result of Z. Felizardo's peach of a shot from the right hand side of the box - placed beautifully in the top corner. 1 - 0. The score became 2 - 0 at 30 minutes into the game, when Lords were given a penalty which M. Tyunyakov blasted straight down the middle giving the keeper no chance! After this, you could see that the players of Lords were more interested in killing time than scoring more goals. The teams went for the halftime break at 2 - 0. Lords had most of the ball, with 66 percent of possession.

The coach of Lords was happy with the game so far, but still wanted to change the line up. After 46 minutes, J. Therkelsen came on for A. Arancibia. The Lords players could smell victory in the air. M. Vojnović wasn't in a hurry to leave the field as he was substituted for F. Steiner after 46 minutes. After 46 minutes, the Lords players received new instructions from their manager on how to keep in control of the game. Unhappy with the result so far in the game, the Toledo manager used a brief break in play after 46 minutes to give the players new directives. The Toledo coach was desperate to reverse his team's fortunes in the game, and ordered his team to change strategy. After 50 minutes, Toledo switched M. Eriksson with F. Zaraský, hoping for a quick impact on the pitch. Toledo were able to mount several counterattacks, such as the impressive one after 55 minutes, but I. Rabouça lofted a free kick over the crossbar. It was a bad day for the usually speedy S. Corrao. The mud seemed to slow him down. The Toledo players listened closely to their manager, as he gave new tactical instructions for the team. Although the whole team were struggling to impress, Toledo's S. Zeschau was singled out as being the problem as he was called off the pitch after 75 minutes. R. Ameling was given a chance to change things around. The referee showed Lords's J. Therkelsen the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. F. Zaraský was the unlucky victim and couldn't continue the game, so Toledo's W. Błachnio had to come off the bench. 86 minutes into the match, Toledo replied and reduced the lead to 2 - 1. R. Massenzio scored on a marvellous cross pass coming in from the left. With 88 minutes gone, a long pass from the defence of Toledo resulted in a counterattack that set H. Tronc free through the middle, but the keeper made a spectacular diving save. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by Lords, with 66 percent of the ball.

Most important Lords player was V. Murga. J. Therkelsen on the other hand, had a terrible day. Toledo's top performer was clearly K. Serek. R. Massenzio was a disappointment, however. The match ends 2 - 1.