APIA Knocked Out Of VIAREGGIO TOURNAMENT By The Danes

Four minutes from the break, Apia suffered a vital loss. Apia?s reliable central defender, Paul Galimi, was stretchered off with a severe ?cork? to his left thigh muscle following a heavy collision with a Danish player.
With Galimi off the pitch, much added leadership responsibilities fell on towering central defender, Brad Bartels, who later reflected:
? The Danish boys were excellent with their movements off the ball plus their sharp, precise passing.
?You could easily identify their fulltime professional status by their performance,? ended Apia?s steely defender and  ?Man Of The Match.
The extremely likeable, well disciplined Danes, through severe, climatic conditions, last Sunday had their flight to Italy ?frozen out? in Zurich last Sunday afternoon, forcing them to stay overnight in Switzerland, and thus arrive for their first Cup match on Monday against Italian giants, Juventus, just 15 minutes before kick-off.
The tired Danes thus ultimately suffered a humiliating, morale-draining 6-1 loss to the ?Black & Whites?
The Danes? Tour Leader explained to this Journalist before Apia?s match, that they had immediately contacted the Italian Tournament organisation of their plight on Sunday in Switzerland, and begged them, for a delayed kick-off, instead of the scheduled 5pm start.
Not only was the Danes? request flatly rejected, Juventus in fact had the kick-off brought forward to 3pm, resulting in the Danes? 6-1 thrashing inflicted on them by the ?Black and Whites?.
On the half hour mark, the Danes opened the score with an angled drive fired from the left to hit the bottom right hand corner.
Just seven minutes later they doubled the score line from a free kick that was allowed to bounce over the Apia defence and be driven into the target by their central striker.
A 3-0 score line arrived for the Scandinavians in 69th minute when the same striker, (Niclas Rohde), blasted at Apia?s goals, initially blocked by captain and goalkeeper, Stefan Giglio but the rebound slammed back in for the third goal.
Nineteen minutes from the bell, goal No 4 was again scored by Rohde) to complete the scoring.
Apia?s Care-taker coach, Tony Raciti, after the match, evaluated:
?Look, after having drawn and lost our first two Cup matches, and Juventus having already qualified, in reality this match against the Danes was a ?dead-rubber?.
?So the opportunity was there for us to give much valuable game-time experience to our younger squad players. This being the case we used many of the younger players to give them game time against International Youth opposition at the very highest level in the World.
?As well, a number of our ?senior players? gracefully insisted they would love their younger squad members to be given game-time in our final Group Cup match against the Danes. Senior team-management fully agreed with this sentiment??.
Raciti went on to add:  ?In my humble opinion, and all things being equal, I felt we may have achieved some kind of result against these Danes.
?As we had nothing to lose, the Danes had everything to gain and play for, (the ?prize of a spot in Round 2?), plus 2nd highest spot in the 12 Groups, they played with a ?Do or Die? frame of mind,? concluded Raciti.
Best performer for Apia in this, their final Cup match, was lanky centre-back and enforcer, Brad Bartels, who was saddled with the added responsibility of marshalling his younger team members.
APIA LEICHHARDT TIGERS? line-up: Giglio: Vlastelica, Bartels, Galimi (Napoli 41st), Nasreddine: Prioetto, Raciti (Irish 61st), Dahdah: Armstrong, Salameh: Ward (Barba 55th).
Apia?s Formation: 4-2-3-1.
Nordsjaelland Formation: 4-3-3.
Goals Scored:
Nordsjaelland: 27th, 34th, 69th, 70th, 82nd.
-By John Economos