Union SG beat Hapoel BS 4-0 as Guilherme Smith scores twice
Union SG scored four second-half goals without reply against Hapoel BS in the Europa League, with Guilherme Smith scoring twice after a Raul Florucz penalty.
By Harvey Watkins,
Union SG beat Hapoel BS 4-0 at the Stade Joseph Marien on Thursday in the third matchday of the Europa League, and every goal came after the interval. Raul Florucz opened the scoring with a 46th-minute penalty, Guilherme Smith added the second on the hour, Dylan Aquino made it three in the 77th minute and Smith completed the scoring in the 81st.
A goalless first half
The final score can obscure the fact that this was level for the whole of the first 45 minutes. Neither side scored before the break, and at half-time nothing about the outcome was settled. A four-goal margin tends to get remembered as a one-sided evening from start to finish, but that is not what the scoring shows.
What changed the match was timing. Florucz's penalty arrived in the 46th minute, almost as soon as the second half had begun. Hapoel BS had held out until the interval and then found themselves behind before the half had properly settled. From that point the game belonged to the home side.
Smith scored twice
Smith's first goal, in the 60th minute, doubled the lead and gave Union SG a cushion with half an hour remaining. A two-goal advantage at that stage does not end a contest, but Hapoel BS did not score again, and Union SG did.
Aquino's goal in the 77th minute made it 3-0, and Smith's second, four minutes later, took the margin to four. Three goals in 21 minutes turned a winning position into a heavy defeat for the visitors. Smith finished as the only player on the night to score more than once, and his two goals bracketed the spell in which the match was decided.
Spread of the scoring
Three different players scored for Union SG: Florucz, Smith and Aquino. That is a modest point, but a worthwhile one. The goals did not depend on a single source, and the penalty that broke the deadlock was followed by three goals from open play. Union SG did not need the spot kick to win by a distance, though it did change the course of the second half.
A clean sheet at the other end
Hapoel BS did not score, and Union SG kept a clean sheet across the full 90 minutes. Whatever the visitors managed in a goalless first half, they could not answer once they fell behind, and the deficit grew rather than narrowed as the match went on.
How much to read into it
A 4-0 win is an emphatic result and should be recorded as one. It is also a single match, and one result is a narrow basis for broad conclusions about either side. The most accurate description of the night is the plainest one: a level first half followed by a decisive second, in which Union SG scored four times and Hapoel BS did not reply.
For Union SG, the result was a convincing home win built entirely after the break. For Hapoel BS, it was a match that turned within a minute of the restart and got away from them in the final quarter of an hour.