Result: Whites 2 – 5 Sacred Heart

We were always going to be the underdogs in this game. We saw the return of Stefan this week after a long absence, but with a injury ridden defence and the A’s pinching our on form strikers in Omar and Ismail, it was going to be difficult. In typical Cs fashion, we started on the back foot, conceding 2 inside the first 20 minutes, with Masood picking up an injury, forcing him off. We had no real control of the ball, clearing it out once when we gained possession. We began to switch on, realising our best way to see out the half was to play route one. We began pumping it long to Evan, with his expert one-on-one dribbling, we believed he could beat their slow, and for some reason angry, bald CB. Evan is a man of many talents; he has the dribbling of Messi, the strength of Akinfenwa, the tactical mindset of Fergie, but unfortunately, the finishing of Torres. Evan found himself one-on-one with the keeper and tried to curl the shot to the back stick but failed to convert. We had a few more chances in the half but all seemed to end the same way, with a goal kick. The visitors managed to sneak one before the break, leaving us 3 in the negative as we went to the rooms. Souk had a lot to say, he felt that they were not necessarily better than us, just playing better on the day, believing that is we played with more heart, and keeping more possession, we could win. I made a speech of my own, stating that we needed to keep calm, they think they have the game in the bag now, so we needed to just focus on the basics, and more importantly, quit lashing out at each other after every mistake. We went out confident, aand we played like it too. The Whites were on top for the first 15 mins, keeping possession and creating chances. Mo managed to score a perl of a volley Scholes himself would have been proud of, which swerved into the top corner. According to my notes, Bas then made a diving save, but I find that hard to believe, nevertheless he managed to keep us in it, which were starting to come accustom to. Sacred Heart got their lead back out to 3 as a cross reached the back post and was headed home. The game was even from then on in, with Bas making a fingertip save on a follow up shot from a corner. Later in the game we wound ourself with a free kick about 30 yards out, and theres only one man for the job, Mo “The King” Alghusaini. Perfectly weighted, the ball looped over the wall and found itself in the top right corner, we were back in it. We continued to press, with Evan being the main focal point of the attack. Just 2 down, we thought one more would put us in with a real chance, and we thought we’d found the one. Michael “Daniel” Petrilli perfectly timed and placed a through ball to Evan, who ran on towards the keeper and powered in the left hand side of the goal. We were buzzing, the bench was off their feet, we were back in it, but it was to no avail. The Scared Heart linesman, very controversially, deemed Evan to be offside, thus discounting the goal. With less than 10 minutes left, this crushed our hopes of a comeback. The final nail in the coffin occurred just before the whistle, with the visitors extending the lead back out to three, with the score finishing 2-5. Souk had this to say after the game:

“Well done C team today! We lost today but I felt like a win (we drew last week n I felt sh.. as that was a lost). Today We fought hard, we out played them majority of the time and had a few really good chances. Could have been different result! No excuses but considering they are 2 div higher n they drew 1-1 with our b team a few weeks ago. N we did not have our usual team!, we managed to put away 2 goals, and could easily have a few more goals! You did well and shall be proud of yourself!”

The boys fought hard, and on another day, with a full team, the result could of gone the other way. My players of the day were; Mo, Evan and Umar. Good job boys, see ya at training.
– Campbell Hodgins