Lions Winning Streak Continues in the Cup

Highgate Albion 1 Dutch Lions 2 
Match Report by Grant 

Today the Dutch Lions faced arguably their toughest match to date as they took on a team in the league above in the cup. Morale was high on the back of two straight wins for the Lions after a productive team meeting at the pub.

An ominous sign was the Robin Red Breast spotted by gaffer Donald at the John Lyon  car park and from then on hopes were high, (some of you may remember the sighting prior to our win against NLO) the scene was once again set for a Dutch Lions domination.

Dutch Lions are devoted Bird Watchers

After a long and hard journey up the A1 we arrived at the opposition car park. I must admit seeing Arran still High from the previous night’s antics didn’t give me the up most confidence but even a high Arran is better than most.

There was an air of confidence around the Lions changing rooms you could smell it in the air, or was that Mo? Anyway we got changed and began warming up, after an inspirational team talk from Don, Pedro and The Lions own Jose Mourinho AKA John Ramalho we were ready.

The opposition started brightly and came at us strong, the Lions held out carving out a few chances of our own only to be denied by some good stops from the Highgate Keeper. Then came the opposition’s goal created by a nippy winger cutting inside and laying the ball through to an ozzy who scored. Rubbish goal.

The Lions response was equal to QPR drawing with Port Vale 4 – 4 after being 4 – 1 down with 10 minutes to go. We pulled together as a team and were determined not to be beaten, soon after, a chance to pull level was created with the keeper caught in no mans land after a good ball over the top to Paulo whose shot was cleared of the Line by a Highgate defender.

The Lions felt there time was now and began to put the Highgate defence under some serious pressure which paid off with Tim Head breaking down the line and slotting a passed shot to the left of the keeper. The lions fans (Hamzeh’s kid brother) were sent into raptures and the assistant struggled to hold them back.

Further Lions domination led us in for the half time team talk when we re-capped on the points talked about prior to the match. After a brief chat we were ready to kick some arse.

What came next was magical, Tim Head showed excellent skill to beat three men in the middle of the park and dink a ball over the top to in form stirker Paulo Ramalho. Paulo took the ball down and unselfishly layed the ball square to Buzzy Ajjour who blasted the ball past a despairing HighGate goalkeeper his 3rd in two games. Great Goal, that’s how football should be played.  
 
From then on Highgate were out to win and threw everything at us however we stayed strong with Julian and Pedro taking the pressure of the two centre backs and Peter Clark, Noel, Hamzeh (replaced by Macca) and Tim Head dominating the wing play. The Lions got what their performance deserved and our in the hat for the next round. The match was only tarnished by some harsh words from the HighGate “AV IT” winger who received a red card for his efforts, well done that man!
Finally I would like to make a special mention to Ollie, my right hand man, who has been in outstanding form of late.  Julian who remains resilient in the middle allowing Pedro a bit more room to attack, Paulo who never stops nibbling heels and Ahmed who is just simply scoring his chances.

Timid as usual showed us why he doesn’t always pass with some excellent skill and final balls forward to the front two. Arran was excellent in goal and saved the defence on more than one occasion.

And finally the team in general (especially Grant) was fantastic. If we can keep this form going there is no reason why we can’t beat who ever the League put in front of us. Let’s win this cup.