Saturday 4th November 2023

ACS 2 - 3 Harrodian

Goals: Ale, Jordi, Fran

Play of the match: George K

Match report by: Fran S

After an easy win against Wetherby on Wednesday the boys had high hopes for our game against ACS Cobham on Saturday. We arrived at their ground and had only 15 minutes to warm up before kick off under the rain. After a good but quick warm up we were fired up by a team talk by ale and were full of energy as the first whistle blew. We started with Lucas in goal, back line of Remi, Jago, Harry and alberto. Ale, francesco and george were in midfield with Marlowe, Jordi and Clem in front of them as our front three. We elected to play a low block and it quickly paid off when Ale scored the opener 10 minutes in. Jordi got the assist with a beautiful little flick and Ale sat their centre back down before calmly slotting the ball in the back of the net. We pressed on after this early goal and were soon rewarded with a second ten minutes later when Ale and Jordi linked up beautifully again with a quick one - two around their center back and a composed finish from Jordi to put us 2 - 0 up. However, after more relentless attacking from us, one of their center backs slid a ball through our midfield and a combination of poor marking and lack of concentration allowed their striker to get in behind and score a few minutes before half time. We started the second half knowing that the next goal would be crucial but 5 minutes in ACS got their second goal with a cross into the box scored by their unmarked striker (Harry’s man) . However, we didn’t let that get to us and we continued to play our game and were rewarded when Fra had the ball set to him on the edge of the box by Jordi and hit a beautiful left footed strike into the top corner. After going back in front we needed to dig in and defend for the last 20 minutes. Dodgy calls from the ref led Jordi to complain and be sin binned for eight minutes leaving us a man down. We defended waves of ACS attacks really well with great clearance headers from Harry and big tackles by George. As we returned to 11 men, we started to push forwards again in the last ten minutes and came close to scoring on two occasions due to their left back not being able to handle Clem’s pace on the right wing. The game got a bit aggressive towards the end with some harsh words being exchanged between players and some late tackles, leading to various players on both teams to be booked. Finally, the final whistle blew as Jordi put in what we all thought was a good tackle, but the ref decided to give him a second yellow and a red. After the high tensions of the game everyone shook hands and Solly’s army celebrated another big win.

unavailable/injured: Aidan, Oscar, Frankie, Finn, Sidney, Alek.

Ratings:

Lucas - 7
Remi - 8
Jago - 7.5
Harry - 7.5
Alberto - 8
Ale - 8
George - 8.5
Fran - 8
Marlowe - 7
Jordi - 7
Clem - 8
Tenzin - 7
Massimo - 7