Team: Minne / Bernardo, McGrath, Philpot / Hodgson, McGeehan, Eloranta, Novak, Si M'hammed /

Godeau, Costa

Subs: Donner, Lachia, Thom

After four wins in a row, RBBFC was ready to keep winning against Choule who’s in the bottom half of the table. Nothing better than warming up in delightful hail, heavy rain and strong wind, but the conditions were the same for both teams.

We had the wind in our favour during first half of the match, and with Choule staying low and giving away nothing, most of the action happened on their side of the pitch.

After 20 mins, their right wing back had stopped following Ola home leaving him with lots of space. Luka found Ola with a great pass in space and he ran like if the police was chasing him. Taking the ball into the box, he saw both Martin and Thomas alone across the box and passed it sideways. The ball went in front of Martin but found Thomas who was unfortunate to hit the crossbar. Would have been a lovely goal.

The rest of the first half consisted of British having the ball, the referee blowing offside on our attacking players and some very short visits from Choule to our side of the pitch. With the few visits being long balls in behind the defence or one striker taking on three RBBFC players, our defence was in full control.

Few chances to write home about, half-time and 0-0.

Second half started with a change of strategy from Choule. Instead of staying low, they now had the wind in their favour and decided to pressure high. This left us with a lot of room to attack in.

We continued to create chances but failed to put the ball in the net. Five minutes into the second half, we got a corner which ended up at the back post. Nils headed the ball back across the box and Martin put his knee to it, sending it into the goal and 1-0 for the British!

Choule had more visits to our half of the pitch in the second half, creating some half-chances but nothing our solid defence couldn’t handle. On the other side of the pitch, Ola and Dani was given lots of space to run into. They both created good chances, but the theme of this game was offsides. The ref blew over double-digit offsides, some which were wrong and would have led to clear chances of scoring. One in particular was a great cross from Ola to Martin on the far post which Martin expedited beautifully into goal but was blown off for offside. Ola also had a very good chance from a shot 18 meters out, but it went outside the goal.

Instead, the thing that happens when you fail to put the ball in the net, happened. Choule had a counterattack and scored. 1-1.

Our boys continued to create more chances towards the end, but in the end failed to be clinical in front of goal. Full time 1-1 and one point, in a game we felt like we should have won.

We are still in first position and must be sharp next weekend to bring the points home. Let’s keep focus boys, return to winning and bring the title home!

MOM and reporter: Ola Eloranta