Apollo 8 - 2 Ruifblasters (374760083)

Due to an all-day shower, 15197 paying spectators got to see a match on a pitch-turned-bog at Olympus Arena. Jaime Angeloni was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Vytaliy Vepric and Matthias Ericsson. Apollo started off with a 4-4-2 lineup. The following players had been chosen: Zeelenberg - Beerta, Willems, Romein, van Teijens - Popa, Leurs, van Geuns, Lausberg - Wallis, Boomkens.

Ruifblasters decided to use a 5-3-2 set up. The following players took the field: Tobia - González, Olmos, Pavel, Fryand, Grandchamp - Jose, Šepić, De Waele - Veland, Serin.

The wings were the focus of most of Apollo's attacks today. Using their counter-attacking abilities was the strategy of choice for Ruifblasters. Apollo took the lead after 2 minutes as a result of A. Wallis's peach of a shot from the right hand side of the box - placed beautifully in the top corner. 1 - 0. With 17 minutes of the game having been played, H. Fryand received a blow to the hip in a collision and was unable to continue. Ruifblasters, with no available replacements, now faced the prospect of finishing the game with a reduced number of players. The referee showed Ruifblasters's A. Grandchamp the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge. J. Romein got left behind when Ruifblasters's O. Veland made a sudden run forward after 32 minutes, finishing off with a neat strike. 1 - 1! After some beautiful movement down the left wing, J. Romein scored for Apollo putting them ahead 2 - 1, after 33 minutes. The home side's A. Wallis came close to extending the lead 34 minutes into the game. His shot came in from the right hand side but A. Tobia managed to save it with an unbelievable reaction stop. A swift counterattack by Ruifblasters resulted in a free kick that C. Jose elegantly twisted into the goal - 2 - 2! Apollo were determined to attack on the wing and their central attempts were constantly abandoned in favour of the wings. The home side put themselves ahead 3 - 2 after 37 minutes courtesy of a breakthrough from H. van Geuns, who scored with a stunning volley following a cross from the right wing. 3 - 2 was the halftime score. Apollo claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 72 percent.

After 63 minutes, the away team failed to deal with a good exchange of passes on the right, and J. Romein gave the Apollo supporters even more to cheer about when he increased the lead to 4 - 2. Q. Boomkens of Apollo received a yellow card after 74 minutes for unsportsmanlike behaviour. O. Pavel behaved like an inexperienced youth player after 77 minutes as he gave the ball away to Q. Boomkens. Lucky for him though, there was no goal. It was obvious that Apollo had instructions to attack on the wings instead of in the middle. After 78 minutes, J. Romein put Apollo ahead 5 - 2 when he rose to head in a cross from the right wing. By then J. Romein had scored three goals - a hat trick! C. Jose was suffering from cramp and had difficulty keeping up as the opposition pushed forward. M. Leurs had no problems getting through and hit home to make the score 6 - 2. The players of Apollo now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. One of many good crosses from L. Lausberg on the wing was received and skillfully taken care of by A. Wallis, who scored for Apollo. 7 - 2 Good work by the Ruifblasters defensive line after 87 minutes produced a good counterattack chance, which cut elegantly down the middle of the pitch and found A. Grandchamp alone in front of the goal, but his shot whistled just wide. The Apollo free kick 88 minutes into the match seemed wasted, as the shot was both short and off target. But was this actually a plan? The ball landed at the feet of Q. Boomkens, who was completely unmarked in the box. That's 8 - 2! A great save by keeper A. Tobia after 89 minutes kept the visitors in the game after H. van Geuns struck from the left with a real cannonball. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by Apollo, with 78 percent of the ball.

Apollo's top performer was clearly A. Wallis. On the other hand, A. Zeelenberg's play was disheartening. Most important Ruifblasters player was O. Serin. A. Tobia on the other hand, had a terrible day. The match ends 8 - 2.