Palace Casuals

[talisman]

A dull morning yielded to full sunshine as this lunchtime kick-off pitted the two top sides against each other in League Round 24. Palace Casuals away at Levski, in Sofia, Bulgaria. Level 22, AQ +0.3
With two players under suspension, the Palace Casuals Management spent a few hours in head-scratching contemplation before deciding to pit everything in this all-or-nothing confrontation to a 3N-5-2V formation against a Narrow Diamond. Club Captain Anurak Arma was the unfortunate defender to be left on the bench, Zoltan Beider being restored between the posts after his 4 days' rest and on this occasion being nominated Captain-of-the-Day. Attacking midfielder Valentin Ndjengue and striker Andres Ramos replaced the suspended Omar Hansen and Catalin Neagu, respectively, and striker Claude Pinto came in as second forward in place of Arma, restoring the famous Level 20 season striking partnership that claimed 40 goals between them. Hansen's free-kick duties were assigned to midfielder Suhail Kamal, a interesting experiment in light of the fact that Ramos has free-kick special ability.
Having sprung the formation surprise, the expectation that Casuals would operate an all-out attack was fulfilled, and the home side were forced onto the back foot for most of the first quarter-hour. A corner from the left in the 17th minute by Ndjengue found the head of Kamal and the opening goal was in the net. Levski countered immediately and Di Chiro beat Bieder with a long range shot to level the scores a mere 5 minutes after the opener. He would have claimed the lead for his side a few minutes later but Bieder this time was wise to the play and pushed the ball over the bar, and then made a confident catch from the resulting corner. Later on in the half, midfielder Michael Muscroft announced his presence in the game with a 30 yard shot which beat home 'keeper Abderazzak, to restore the visitors' lead. In the second half, home striker Biton committed a foul while assisting his defence and Kamal had his chance. A couple of free-kicks in the first half had been his 'sighters', both narrowly missing the target, but this time he was on target and the 'keeper did well to save and concede the corner. Ndjengue did the honours again, this time finding the late-arriving Kevin Pigott and he nodded the ball into the net. It would seem that the old strike force had been kept quiet by the defence for too long, and Ramos finally broke the shackles by taking the ball all the way and forcing it past Adberazzak for the fourth and final goal.
Palace Casuals go back to level points with Levski but are second on goal difference, the goals difference now considerably reduced. If they are to win the Championship they must produce another two performances like this and hope that other results go their way...