Palace Casuals

[talisman]

That such a big day so far this season was full of easy matches belittles the effort that the whole squad has put into the season so far...

The Final Group Match in the Champions League was against bottom of the table ROMA - Casuals were already assured of top placing no matter what the result here or elsewhere so only pride was at stake. The Management fielded a team that just matched the visitors in quality, so it was no surprise that the match was scoreless until the 72nd minute, when Andres Ramos weaved his way through the ROMA defence and toe-poked the ball past the keeper. Five minutes later, Youth Team products Sam Harrold and Jordan Bridges were given their debuts, coming on in place of Ben De Wree and Stergios Tzanakakis, respectively. Johan Shaqiri finished off the scoring two minutes from time with another 25 yard screamer, beating the visitors custodian all ends up.




In the Knockout rounds Palace Casuals will first be pitted against the Runners Up from Group B, HOKAGE FC.

Back to the League, the Round 11 match was at home against third-from-bottom ITALIA Dalat. A full first team was fielded; not a game to relax as one objective of this type of game is to get a Goal Difference boost. In this the team were successful, running out 5-1 winners. Omar Hansen opened the scoring with a quick brace of goals, scoring direct from a free-kick before converting an Anders Graf free-kick. ITALIA Dalat countered within two minutes, Thornberg beating the home defence and the diving keeper Zoltan Bieder with a run and shot. Catalin Neagu kept up his rich vein of goals with a header from a Johan Shaqiri cross on the half-hour and the home side went in at the break 3-1 up. Neagu made a defence-splitting run before unselfishly providing Claude Pinto with an easy tap in for the fourth goal in the second half, and Shaqiri added to his recent spate of long-range solo goals with another ten minutes from the end. Unfortunately Jack McCaul picked up another yellow card and will be unavailable for the next league game, which is against second in table Dimitris FC.