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25 October 2006, by Marco Pereira

Slusarski grabs winner for impressive Leiria

Setubal 1-2 Leiria

Leiria rallied from being a goal down to win their away match at Setubal 2-1. A positive response for Leiria after the shellacking they took from Benfica in their last game. The game was also Leiria’s win against Setubal at the Bonfim stadium.

The game got off to a slow start as bad weather conditions impeded the flow of either team. Not much occurred until the 29th minute when Setubal’s Amuneke got the home side on the scoreboard first with a header that beat Leiria goalkeeper, Fernando.

It did not take long for Leiria to respond as they got their equaliser five minutes later when Paulo Gomes took advantage of a lucky bounce from a Paulo Machado free kick, and managed to squeeze the ball in between Setubal goalkeeper, Joao Paulo, and the post. The teams went into the break all square.

After the re-start, Leiria got what proved to be the winning goal when Polish import, Slusarski, was left unmarked and put the visitors on top.

Some sloppy goalkeeping almost gave Leiria a third goal when Joao Paulo tried and failed to properly gather a Paulo Machado cross. If it had not been for Verissimo’s alertness, Paulo Cesar was on the spot looking to poke the ball into Leiria’s net.

In the 69th minute Leiria full-back Eder was sent off when he collected his second yellow card and Setubal almost took the opportunity to get back level when Lourenco headed an Amuneke ball past Fernando, but the goal was correctly called offside.

Bruno Ribeiro also came close just before full time when he let fly but a lucky deflection saved Leiria as Fernando would have had no chance to make the stop.

Setubal coach, Toni:

“There are two factors that justified Leiria’s victory; they better adapted to the wet pitch and took advantage of dead ball situations, when we lacked concentration and were not rigorous.”

“We did not play a good game and we are disappointed, but we must lift our heads for the next game.”

Leiria coach, Domingos Paciencia:

“To play here is always complicated, especially, against a team as confident as Setubal. We were the more consistent team after it was 1-0. What was most important was how the players recovered from such a bad loss as the one we suffered against Benfica [4-0].”

Setubal:
Joao Paulo, Janicio (Lourenco, 72), Verissimo, Auri, Nandinho, Sandro, Binho (Fonseca, 57), Julien (Mario Carlos, 31), Bruno Ribeiro, Amuneke, Varela

Leiria:
Fernando, Eder, Marcos Antonio, Renato, Tixier, Paulo Gomes, Faria, Paulo Machado (Harison, 85), Paulo Cesar (Alhandra, 79), Slusarski (Larajeiro, 72), Sougou
Yellow Cards: Eder (32), Slusarski (71)

Goals:
[1-0] Amuneke, 29
[1-1] Paulo Gomes, 34
[1-2] Slusarski, 52