Team: Mercelis / Lebbink, Lambrecht, McGrath, Deroeck, Billiet / Ricketts, Lamarra, McGeehan / Vadora, Kellerman Subs: Hodgson, Legere, Lachia

It was a cold wet day in January, we travelled to Auderghem for an early kick off. We were playing Choule; bottom of the league and we were still undefeated. The danger of course was complacency. After all, it wasn’t long ago that on the last day of the season, "all” the top team had to do was beat the bottom team and they would win the league. "They didn’t and we were crowned Champions”, coach McGrath reminded us in the changing room before the game.

We had a strong squad and we lined-up in a 5-3-2 formation with Kris in goal, Nils sweeping and Sammy and Kev stoppering. Didi and Maarten took up the wing-back positions and the usual tough trio of Lamarra, McGeehan and Rickets held the middle. Tommy was back and took his place upfront front next to Vadora. Hodgson, Lolo and Sylvain would make an impact from the bench.

In the opening exchanges it was clear that Choule were a better team than their league position suggested. They had a couple of classy players in midfield, but above all we noted their determination, all over the pitch they were fighting for every ball. Fortunately we made the break-through early, Rickets exchanging position with Maarten got himself into the right wing position and whipped in a cross. Stevey darted into the box and out-leapt the keeper to pin a header into the bottom corner. 1 up. An impressive leap from someone who’s "Duckin Tiny”. But Choule didn’t lose heart and made several forays forward, the most dangerous of which saw a cross-come shot loop towards the far post, it had Kris back-peddling fast, thankfully it ended up flying narrowly wide. Kris bounced to his feet and immediately assured us he had it covered, the rest of nodded, turned, and breathed a sigh of relief.

A few moments later and Didi was flying up the the left flank, throwing shapes and step-over’s as he bore down on the opposition right back, the defender seeing no alternative way of thwarting the impending danger, brought him down. The free-kick specialist tag-team of Rich and Nils stepped up. Richy played a quick, deceptively bad ball into Nils who then further lured the opposition into a false sense of security by mis-controlling it. So far the plan was working, the opposition defenders were looking on unconcerned. With time and space Nils pulled the trigger and let fire with his right foot sending the ball flying into the top right hand corner. A training ground special.

At half-time Sylvain came on for Kev and not long after Lolo joined the action in Sam’s place. The second half saw some powerful runs down the right hand side from the tireless Maarten, the best of which saw him arch a cross to the far post. Unfortunately he caught Rich in the middle of practicing his Klinsmann goal celebration. Richy had just thrown himself on to the floor when when the ball came across and ricochet of his head and bounced back off the inside of the post. It was a strange, but rather enjoyable sequence of events. After a similar incident involving the same player last week, there are whispers suggesting that Rich may have ben cursed with the infamous "couldn’t hit a barn door” charm on his recent trip to Africa.

Being Rich though, he quickly wanted to make making amends and picked up the ball and made one of his trademark penetrating runs straight at the heart of the opposing defense. After gliding past several defenders he slide the ball across the 6-yard box towards a grateful looking Tommy who was ready to stroke it in to the back of the net. Not so fast! Micky seeing an opportunity to influence the game just managed to get a toe on it and expertly guided the ball through the narrow gap between Tommy and the far-post, sending the ball out of play and sending the usually amicable german a bit angry.

The cherry on top was Lolo sliding an exquisite ball through to Stevey, who beat the off-side trap and sped towards the keeper, with Tommy in support, Stevey dropped his shoulder, rounded the goalie and tapped the ball into an empty net. Thank you very much for a lovely…. You know the drill. With a few moments remaining Hodgson managed to get himself on, run about a bit and notch up another appearance stat.

A good day at the football, see you next week.

MOM & Reporter: Nils McGrath