AC Carrera travelled to Muswell Hill to face NLO in the Champions Cup on a dry winter morning. NLO defied their premiership status and showed themselves to be a poorly run club with the team arriving at the ground after 10:30am with the match only kicking off off at 11am. This was motivation enough for Carrera to start strongly and fight for every ball on the pitch.
Darren was playing the loan striker role very well and as he moved to the flanks was creating space in the middle for Christian and Fabio P to run into. This proved to be a key as Darren raced down the wing on 10 minutes and put in a dangerous ball across the box that just escaped Christian’s reach but Fabio P was on hand to calmly slot home with his right foot at the back post giving the keeper no chance.
The first half continued with them enjoying territorial advantage but our defence (Anto, Marco C, Angelo, Frank) stood strong. The midfield continued to press with Joe in particular putting himself about. Carrera continued to create good openings and won several corner kicks they were unable to take advantage of. The equaliser came on the hour mark as NLO’s midfield put in a diagonal ball over Frank and their right winger put in a cross for that their striker to head into the far corner just past Andy’s outstretched arm.
At 1-1 it was very much game on and after Daz held the ball up well he knocked it back to Joe who put a sublime first time pass down the left into Christian’s path. With one defender to beat Christian cut in on his right foot and sent a shot angling towards the top corner but the NLO keeper produced a fantastic save to tip the ball over. It was from the resulting corner that NLO counter attacked to score a goal that would put them into the lead just before half time.
Carrera started the 2nd half as they finished the first although tired legs were beginning to show on a huge pitch. NLO began to create more opportunities and the ref inexplicably awarded them a penalty after Frank handled the ball (obviously involuntarily) as the ball was blasted at him from short range. Not to worry as Andrea heroically saved the penalty to his left even though the shot was powerfully placed in the corner. Carrera though were somehow distracted by the penalty save and were caught cold at the resulting corner. The ball was cleared to the edge of the box where the player that had missed the penalty corrected his mistake by driving an unstoppable shot into the right hand corner.
3-1 down with 60 minutes gone and Carrera faced an uphill struggle. Substitutions were made with Jordi, Tony and Fabio C coming on and NLO took advantage of Carrera’s tired legs to run in 4 late goals to add gloss to the scoreline.
There were moments of good play in midfield with Daz, Christian & Joe combining well to feed Fabio P down the wing but we couldn’t take advantage. All in all a very good display for 60 minutes that was somewhat ruined by slack defending in the final part of the game.
