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Palace Casuals had two home games today, and filled the stadium both times...
Cup Qualifying Round 1st Leg, home vs FC Avenger of Barcelona, Spain. Level 23, AQ -0.6
Having set up to counter the visitor's formation, the Management decided to use the match for order experimentation, today using defensive/counter tactics, and despite an early setback, the team decided that they liked it. One problem which was encountered as the teams entered the field, was that the visitors were wearing their 'home' strip, which was very similar to Palace Casuals' home strip:
FC Avenger kicked off and before the dust had even settled, were one goal up, Mohammed Haji weaving through the home defence and slotting the ball past Mihaita Dragut. Having recovered from the shock, Casuals attacked, and after a foul by Kim, Omar Hansen had the chance to open his account for the season, and he obliged, blasting the free-kick through the defensive wall and past Larwan in the visitors goal. On 21 minutes, Claude Pinto latched onto a long clearance out of defence and his long pass through the Avenger defence found Charles Salami, and he slid the ball home. Five minutes later, another foul by the visitors was punished as Hansen's free-kick deceived the keeper into diving the wrong way as it bent round the defensive wall. In the second half, a Johan Shaqiri corner was followed by a push in the area by an Avenger defender and Hansen was given the task of slotting home a Penalty to complete his hat-trick, but Larwan guessed right and dived to palm the ball away. In the 66th minute, Michael Muscroft capped a Man-of-the-Match performance by slicing his way through the defence and shot past the keeper. The match finished a 4-1 win to the home side.
A speculative 1T bid on a DC/DMC to provide a bit of cover... which was surprisingly successful!
League Round 2, home vs BSC Oranke of Berlin, Germany. Level 22, AQ -1.4
Having escaped from being a goal down in three of the previous four games, it was only to be expected that this match would be no different. The defences of both sides were dominant until just after the half-hour when Malagon beat Zoltan Bieder in the home goal with a shot from outside the area. A foul by a Oranke player on the cusp of half-time gave Omar Hansen another free-kick opportunity and he scored his third direct free-kick in two games to send the sides into half-time on level terms. By now, the opposition should have been wary of giving Hansen a free-kick opportunity outside the Penalty box, but Toth obviously forgot that when he fouled Catalin Neagu and Hansen despatched another set-piece ball into the net. The only further action of note was the introduction of Jack McCaul in place of Ayman Gomaa in midfield. McCaul's first attempt at the ball was a foul tackle and he was the recipient of a yellow card barely 30 seconds from him coming onto the field. Despite the early foul which caused an injury to Paunovic, Casuals captain Anurak Arma obviously did enough to compensate and was awarded the Man-of-the-Match award.
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