MyPa-47 0 - 1 Rovers

By: Dan Clough | August 16th, 2007

Rovers will take a one-goal advantage into the home leg in a fortnight despite playing quite poorly for a large portion of this match.

Having had enough chances to win the game by a huge margin we only managed one goal and looked defensively dodgy in the second half.

Rovers started brightly. Following MyPa’s kick-off, Santa Cruz took the ball, gave it to Roberts who was fouled. Pedersen hit the resulting free kick on target and the keeper was tested 30 seconds in!

Two minutes later and Roberts had our first big chance. Unfortunately he stumbled as he controlled the ball and hit it straight at Korhonen, MyPa’s impressive stopper.

Korhonen was unable to do anything for Rovers next chance. Santa Cruz received a superb through-ball from Roberts in one of many neat looking link-ups between the two of them, before placing the ball neatly in the far corner to give Rovers the lead after just five minutes! It was a lovely goal from the Paraguayan who celebrated his 26th birthday today!

MyPa, which is in fact pronounced Moo-Pah, almost equalised after 22 minutes. Mikko Hyyrynen, who was their main threat all game, hit a 35 yard drive, beating Friedel’s dive but it went just wide.

David Dunn, who was impressive throughout, had two long range efforts just before half time. The first, a low effort from thirty yards which was saved while the second, from the edge of the box just missed the top corner.

At half time we were treated to the insights of football genius’ Colin Murray and Pat Nevin. Cue 10 minutes of pure bollocks!

In the second half it seemed that the teams had swapped kits. MyPa were full of confidence and passing it around nicely, applying pressure in the top third whilst Rovers were sloppy, appeared nervous and couldn’t get the ball out of their half. MyPa’s problem was, however, that they are in fact shit going forward and couldn’t work the ball into decent shooting opportunities.

The disappointing second half saw some shocking crosses from Stephen Warnock every time he went forward, some calamitous defending from the usually solid Chris Samba and two very near own goals that would have proved both hilarious and disastrous for MyPa. The first a long ball that was chested to the keeper by Toni Huttunen, unfortunately the keeper wasn’t there but the ball rolled wide. Then, another long ball was sliced by Tuomas Kansikas and looped up into the air but bounced wide.

Rovers had two good chances towards the end of the second half. The first was an effort from the edge of the box by Derbyshire. It looped up over the goalkeeper and just over the net. Had it gone in it would have been a carbon copy of the goal he scored at Boro on Saturday!

With just three minutes to go, Bentley tried a long-range effort, he hit it quite tamely but tried to bend it into the corner but it was well saved and Derbyshire couldn’t quite follow it up.

Rovers are still favourites but this tie could well have been done and dusted by now, with the home leg just a formality and a chance to give some of the fringe players a chance. As it stands we have to be careful not to throw it away as MyPa-47 proved that they aren’t all that bad and can pose a threat if given the chance.

Team
Friedel

Oijer
Warnock
Samba
Nelsen

Bentley
Pedersen (Emerton 72)
Dunn (Tugay 72)
Savage

Roberts (Derbyshire 65)
Santa Cruz

Subs:
Enckleman
Khizanishvilli
Mokoena
Rigters