Valletta beat Floriana to clinch another derby win

Current champions Valletta moved above Birkirkara in second place in the BOV Premier League after beating neighbouring rivals Floriana through a solitary goal early on in the game.

It was far from an exciting derby match at the National Stadium with good flowing Football rare throughout the whole ninety minutes with the game only coming to a lively conclusion in the late stages of the game.

Valletta  could have had a stronger start to the game when they found themselves in front after just one minute of play.  From a foul outside the Floriana taken by AbdelKarim Nafti, Luke Dimech stretched himself in the penalty area to hit the ball and beat Cremona, the Floriana keeper.

Moments later things began to escalete between the two sets of players when Valletta midfielder AbdelKarim Nafti appeared to make an intentional gesture towards Emanuele Briffa, promting the Floriana coach to make a reaction.  With the player and coach squaring off by the touchline, the referee had to intervene to calm down matters and caution Nafti with a yellow card.

Valletta could have doubled their lead on 16 minutes when they tried to hit their opponents on the counter but were too slow in their transition allowing the Floriana defence to regroup in time.  Two minutes later a good exchange of the ball between Elford and Nafti ended with a weak Elford effort easily saved by Cremona.

Tension got the better of the players once again when this time Amadou Samb of Floriana appeared to elbow Ian Azzopardi with the fourth official astonishingly failing to see the incident which left Azzopardi being stretched off.  Azzopardi who was by Valletta's best player after half hour of play, was replaced by Ryan Camilleri at left back.

With the game losing the initial tempo, Valletta were controlling their opponents with relative ease.  Both teams appeared to be short of ideas with both teams opting to use long balls when trying to go forward.

The end of the first half saw Vallettan leading their opponents by a one goal margin.

The second half continued where it had left off in the first for the first 15 minutes with the players seemingly uninterested to play some good football.

Valletta missed a good scoring chance 13 minutes from the end when Nafti nicely released Ryan Fenech with the midfielder's effort saved by Cremona.

Three minutes from the end, Floriana thought they had equalised when Marcelina's cross from midfield appeared to come off substitute Giovanni Galea but the goal was controversially disallowed after the Floriana striker was judged to have fouled Luke Dimech inside the penalty box.

Barbeno's decision prompted an angry reaction from Floriana's players particularly Piciollo who was sent off after passing a disparaging remark at the referee.

BOV Man of the Match: Steve Borg (Valletta|)