A laboured performance from Zion FC eventually culminated in a narrow 4-3 victory over Embassy FC. It was a far from convincing display from the Premiership leaders, who managed to come back from a two goal deficit.
The Lions fans were in great voice before the game, as they expected a game full of Zion domination and plenty of goals. Having beaten The Embassy 12-1 in their last meeting, perhaps the players felt they were in for an easy match. This was a huge misconception. Embassy started the brighter and Zion looked slugish. The passing of Embassy was crisp and incisive, while Zion struggled to put their passes together. It was a long range effort from The Embassy that gave them an early lead. Steve Winter was then given no chance by another well placed effort. That seemed to spark Zion into action and their efforts were rewarded when Ben Harwood profited from Tony Dain's pass to make it 2-1. There was a change in the atmosphere as that goal went in, and it seemed Zion were over their poor start to the match. However, Embassy shocked The Lions again when a long range effort seemed to squirm through Winter's legs. Embassy had silenced the crowd, who were clearly unimpressed with Zion's efforts. Just before half time Tommy Powell gave the home fans reason for optimism when he reduced the deficit to one goal after latching onto a David Jones through ball.
Zion struggled to put together passing moves again in the second half. The Embassy were clearly happy to sit on their advantage and frustrate their opponents. The more misplaced passes and Embassy time wasting that went on, the more aggitated the players and supporters became. Instead of stringing together periods of calm passing, Zion were resorting to hopeful flicks that played into The Embassy's hands. Despite his lack of quality they eventually equalized. Jones tapped the ball home, after Powell had played him in. The goal gave Zion the confidence boost they needed, and Zion then looked certain to go onto win the game. It was Harwood who grabbed the late winner, after a great pass from Jones. The players and supporters breathed a huge sigh of relief as the final whistle blew. They had kept their good run of results going, and more importantly had kept their one point advantage in the league.
Zion Manager Tommy Powell accepted that Zion were not at their best on the night and were lucky to escape with three points, "We struggled tonight. It was a poor performance but its the result that counts, we need to learn from these kind of performances. The positive we can take from this, is the character we showed as a team to retrieve the situation. At 3-1 down it didn't look good for us, but we dug deep and got the result." Zion will be looking to move a step closer to the title next Monday when they face Bike Track Cosmos.
