Palace Casuals

[talisman]

The day dawned with heavy rain and it certainly rained on Palace Casuals' parade...

In the Champions League Final match against Pupusyikalo of Le Neubourg, France, Palace Casuals were the favourites in quality terms but the match proved that false thinking. Various T11 experts have called the effectiveness of the Casuals defensive formation into question, but the Managements take on that is they put out the strongest side possible, motivated them to get a win and could only look on in horror at the car crash that happened. Pupusyikalo were fastest out of the blocks and scored an opening goal in the 5th minute through Halatiu, and there the scoring finished. Whatever the Palace Casuals Manager saw of the match on his dodgy mobile connection was a side that was doing everything asked of them but the end result was lacking. Hansen spurned four good free-kick attempts, Neagu and Ramos had left their shooting boots at home, and the midfield were acting as if they didn't want to be there. The only thing that held up was the back three of Jones, Arma and De Wree, who did all they could to stop the against score getting any higher. In short, Pupusyikalo were the better team on the day, and Casuals have to pick themselves up for the League 'big match' later.



Although it was a 'dead rubber' in terms of affecting the final positions in the League Table, the League Round 25 match between Palace Casuals and League leaders Dimitris FC was a chance for the home side to restore some pride dented in previous games and gain some revenge for the narrow defeat in the reverse fixture earlier in the season. Palace were on the score sheet within three minutes, Valentin Ndjengue swinging in a corner that Claude Pinto forced past the keeper. That spurred the visitors into attacking action, and the Casuals defence was on top form, and the odd occasion that the attack found its way past them Zoltan Bieder was up to the task, making two great saves from close in shots. The home side's lead was doubled with four minutes to the break, a foul on Pinto at the edge of the box resulted in a free-kick which Omar Hansen despatched past the wall and Gaudin in the visiting goal. Ten minutes after half-time Aguilar reduced the lead when he headed home a cross from Wallace. In the last quarter-hour, the home side made a couple of substitutions, the first brought on Andres Ramos for Pinto, and seven minutes after his introduction, he added to his recent good form by making the game safe with a 25 yard screamer that the keeper could only look on and admire. Final score 3-1 to Palace Casuals, who took the opportunity to parade the recently won Cup Winners' Trophy in front of the packed home crowd.



As is usual, Palace Casuals held their annual dinner and awards evening after the last home game of the season.

Candidates for Player of the Season were
Catalin Neagu ST (42 matches, 9 MoM, 27 goals, 10 assists and 7.57 ave. rating) for goal scoring,
Omar Hansen DML/ML/AML (44, 6, 24, 8, 7.34) for goal scoring and set-piece play,
Club Captain Anurak Arma DC (46, 4, 3, 1, 7.47) for marshalling the defence, and
Johan Shaqiri DMR/MR/AMR (45, 2, 11, 18, 7.30) for set-piece play.

The voting was close between the two 'flying wingers', but Hansen pipped Shaqiri at the post.