Palace Casuals

[talisman]

Palace Casuals were up before dawn to make the trip to a neutral venue for the Cup Final match against My Inter FC of Jakarta, Indonesia. With a full squad fully prepared and charged up for action, all the Management could now do was let them get at it. The teams were equally matched for most of the first half-hour, My Inter being slightly more aggressive and were paying with yellow cards, the second of which was for a nasty tackle which left Michael Muscroft hobbling off with an ankle injury. His replacement took a while to get ready and come on, but the Casuals could bask for a while in the resulting opening goal, Johan Shaqiri taking a free-kick which was met by the head of Freddy Jones as he advanced through the area. The rest of the game was more of the same. Two teams battling against each other, one with slightly better quality, the other with more guile and deceptive play. Eight minutes from the end of the match, Casuals got a bit of breathing space as a rare corner concession by the opposition was punished, Shaqiri putting the ball in the area and Andres Ramos finishing it off for a 2-0 lead, which was held to the end. Palace Casuals are at last in possession of a Cup Trophy and winners medals...



Back to the normality of the League, and Round 24. Palace Casuals had a trip to Italia Dalat and again the team produced a sub-par performance, most of which we will draw a discrete veil over. Again resting senior players tired from their efforts in the earlier Cup Final game, the visitors performance was littered with errors and wasted chances against their low-placed opponents and they were again guilty of having their thoughts on the half-time orange than the game, as Thornberg slotted home a cross to give the home side the lead a minute before the break. The second half was just as bad, the Management eventually had to put some of the rested players back on the pitch and eventually Catalin Neagu kept up his top-scorer rating by forcing an equaliser home eight minutes from the end.



Thus the Championship aspirations, slim at the start, are now non-existent, and the only thing now is to patch up the side for the Champions League Final tomorrow, and the last two League games are inconsequential.