Everton-SK Brann: Toffees Blow Out Norweigans at Goodison Park

In the first leg of this tie, in Norway, Everton managed to win in a scrappy game that could have gone either way.

The away goals by Leon Osman and Victor Anichebe were priceless, and meant SK Brann would have to score at least three times at Goodison Park if they were to knock Everton out of the UEFA Cup.

Knowing SK Brann would have to come out fighting right from the start, it was surprising to see Everton had gone with two up front. Most people were expecting them to play with five across the midfield in an attempt to snuff out the early SK Brann attacks. It seemed David Moyes was looking to get Everton on the score sheet early on and kill off any hope SK Brann might have had of rescuing the tie.

A complete public address system failure caused confusion before the game had even got under way. After the coin toss it looked like the Everton captain, Phil Neville, was trying gather his team for a minutes silence in memory of Brain Harris who had sadly passed away earlier in the week.

Brain was a former Everton player who had won both the league title (1962-63) and the FA Cup (1966) while at Goodison. More poignantly he had been a member of the first Everton team to play in a European competition and it would have been a fitting tribute to a great servant of the club if he could have been remembered at this game.

But with no way for the club officials to inform the crowd and obviously not wanting to cause more confusion, the moments silence was abandoned and the match was allowed to start. Maybe the best tribute to Brain is to say that this game was played in his memory.

The match started slowly as both teams tried to size up each other. Unsurprisingly it was SK Brann that did all the attacking at the start, though their first couple of efforts hardly troubled Tim Howard in the Everton goal.

Everton seemed happy to play the ball around but never looked like mounting a serious attempt on the Norwegian goal. With a two goal aggregate advantage, it seemed Everton were going to sit back and absorb whatever SK Brann could throw at them. This tactic very nearly back fired after 30 minutes play. A free kick from the right caught the Everton defense asleep. The momentary lapse in concentration allowed Thorstein Helstad to shoot unmarked at the back post. His shot was straight at Howard and the ball bounced off the keeper, back on to Helstad, and out for a goal kick.

If SK Brann were ever to have a chance of beating Everton they needed to make the most of opportunities such as this. With the crowd livid at almost seeing Everton conceded a goal, the team started to push forward and within moments made the Norwegians pay for their miss.

A loose ball on the edge of the SK Brann area was picked up by Tim Cahill who did well to battle for possession. Some quick thinking saw him flick the ball to Yakubu. The Nigerian unleashed a blistering right foot shot that buried into the back of the SK Brann net.

Everton.

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