Sporting 3 - 5 UNITED (374823686)

Clouds darkened the skies at Sporting Okma Arena as 3855 spectators turned up for the match. Raimondo Meuri was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Jonas Sjöen and Sami Svensk. A 4-4-2 alignment was the formation of choice for Sporting. Lineup: van Westerloo - van Holland, Linderhof, Bekar, Dil - van Doorn, Calame, Danhof, de Ruijter - Westerhoff, van Vleuten.

UNITED decided to use a 4-4-2 set up. The following players had been chosen: Verhart - van der Doelen, de Waard, Yağmur, Ottens - Stoute, Ruisendaal, Nieuwhof, Kooiman - Benneker, van Egmond.

The guests took the lead 2 minutes into the match, after a right-side attack resulted in W. Ottens scoring to make it 0 - 1. With 5 minutes played, R. Benneker nearly put the visitors another one up as he broke through in the middle and fired from just outside the box, but his shot passed just over the bar. J. Ruisendaal increased the visitors' lead by putting a volley away after a pass from the right. 0 - 2. Y. van Doorn of Sporting received a yellow card after 17 minutes for unsportsmanlike behaviour. UNITED increased the lead to 0 - 3 as W. van Egmond scored from the penalty spot, putting the ball in near the top left corner. A marvellous Sporting effort on the right-hand side resulted in a goal after 29 minutes by Y. van Doorn, making the score 1 - 3. 1 - 3 was the score after the first half. Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by UNITED, with 57 percent of the ball.

53 minutes into the match, the visitors put themselves ahead 1 - 4 as R. Benneker finished off an attack from the left with a spectacular scissors kick. The crowd was amused as R. Benneker of UNITED used a few interesting tricks and dribbles to get into the penalty box. The finish by A. Stoute wasn't very amusing, however, as the ball flew way over the crossbar. Sporting supporters cheered as good work down the right got the ball to M. Bekar who reduced the visitors' lead after 71 minutes to 2 - 4. Sporting were awarded a penalty 72 minutes into the match and F. van Holland fired the ball into the net to make the score 3 - 4. J. de Waard of UNITED was booked for kicking the ball away after the whistle. With 79 minutes played, a quick exchange of passes on the left wing freed W. Ottens of UNITED to slip through the defence and score another goal for the visitors. That made the score 3 - 5. The players of UNITED now seemed to think the job was done and acted more defensively, just waiting for the ref to blow the final whistle. UNITED claimed to have seen most of the ball, and the statistics agreed with them - possession being 60 percent.

Most important Sporting player was V. van Vleuten. However, M. Bekar made a disastrous appearance. UNITED's best player was R. Benneker. On the other hand, E. Verhart's play was disheartening. The match ends 3 - 5.