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Fukuda Denshi, Sunday 18th October.
Lions no doubtedly had the strongest squad out for the BFC game despite the late withdrawal of Captain Somi, lethal striker Ahmed AlZahrani, and BFC's ex-midfielder Momo.
Ken was partnered upfront with Abu, and the pair caused BFC a lot of trouble with their pace and dribbling, but likewise, BFC countered that with Alex Sahara and co at the other end of the pitch.
20 minutes in, a punt from Orlando was diverted by a header from Tatsuya onto the left flank, where Abu chased the ball, and with his first touch, crossed the ball into the PK spot, where Ken just beat James by an inch (if that!), and his touch swerved the ball upwards, backwards, and looping over the helpless keeper, to put Lions in front.
Fahad (also played previously for BFC) was then on the end of a similar move, but his edge-of-the-box shot to the top right corner, was too soft and was held comfortably.
BFC had great play on the right flank, and as the ball fell 6 yards out to Alex (I think), he amazingly placed the shot wide. A fine run on the left by BFC saw their striker round Orlando, and as the ball looked like going in, Sima's last ditch slide cleared off the line.
Carlos had one or two shots from varying ranges, mostly didn’t trouble the inform Orlando, but one low drive from 16 yards out or so, did test Spider-man who safely pushed the ball out for a corner.
First half finished 1-0 to Lions, who are usually wasteful infront of goal, strangely looked sharp and scored from 2 half chances, despite BFC having the upper hand.
A good performance from Florin on his debut for Lions, but the bad news for Lions was their star player Hideki who hasn’t featured all season, only had 10 minutes on the pitch before fair challenge saw him aggrevate his knee ligament again.
The second half Lions had to replace Abu who probably was the best player in the first half, but low on fitness, and was replaced by his brother Mo Birkia who played upfront for the first time and his height and strength did help Ken a bit against a pacey James.
Jon Day had a soft diving header held by Orlando, before Mo had a great chance to double Lions' lead but his unjustified hurried shot with his weaker right saw the ball dribble wide…..and that made Lions pay as the defence failed to clear a far post corner after Orlando's initial save, only for Jon Day to slot home a deflected shot with little over 20 minutes to go.
Lions then had more misery with Tatsuya and Omar both going off with injuries….and as Carlos fashioned a perfect left wing ball, the winger cut in and instead of shooting, played the ball across the ball to the far post where Pablo slotted the second for BFC after out-pacing Notti who pulled unfortunately pulled up with a hamstring at the worst possible moment!
BFC's dominance waded with Carlos' exit, and Lions kept lobbing the ball forward and into the box, and BFC kept clearing, and almost scored the third on a counter, but a great challenge from Sima and an even better save from Orlando denied Alex Sahara.
A good game on a great day….bad result for Lions who wished to maintain their unbeaten run against BFC.
Man of the Match: BFC's Carlos Aranda
Report by Hussein Shehata
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