SEN Q 0-4 WISHWAKINGS
Scorers: Wishwakings FC (Anirudh Goyal 37’; Peter Ebuka 43’, 55’)
The past two months have been an exhilarating experience of watching some brilliant football in Delhi. But as the TAL season slowly comes to an end with only one game week left, the level of football on display has been incredible. The tension is high and the fight for first place is fiercer than ever.
Having set the tone for this week’s battles, two teams who have been incredible all season long go head to head. The younger side, Wishwakings FC were pumped and in great shape as they took on a more senior side, Sen Q.
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The first half of the game was rather slow. There were a few attempts by both the teams but nothing promising.
A half time talk by the managers turned the rhythm of the game around. Wishwakings came out and ripped the turf apart. The strikers of the teams put on a massive display. It was Anirudh Tikku who blasted one past the keeper which was beautifully assisted by Peter Ebuka.
Sen Q defence tried their best to hold off the attack but Peter Ebuka was just too brilliant for them, scoring a hattrick again, he was a beast.
The moment of the game was when Anirudh Tikku acrobatically tried to put one past the keeper with a flying header. Though his effort went in vain his team walked away with all 3 points.
M.O.M: PETER EBUKA (Wishwakings)
STORM YOUTH 3-1 ULTIMATE FC
Scorers: Storm Youth FC (Abhinav 12’; Eric 34’; Pritam Saiki (OG) 37’), Ultimate FC (Shravan Choudhary 50’)
Ultimate FC has been a thorn in the side for some of the best teams in the league. This team doesn’t know the meaning of giving up. No matter how big their margin of loss was or whether they drew a game, they made sure that they put on their best effort. The team has produced some of the best saves.
It was no different when Storm Youth FC faced them. The likes of Eric, Abhinav, Aditya Chopra and Abhay of Storm Youth made Ultimate more desperate. It wasn’t easy for Ultimate’s defense to keep up with the attack of Storm; however, they did give it their all.
Aksendra, the goalkeeper of Ultimate may have not kept a clean sheet but he sure won the hearts of the audience and his team for his outstanding performance.
There were nail-biting moments when free kicks by Storm Youth were taken with great skill. The balls curved and at times look like a ‘bend it like Beckham’ moment. Although, those balls never curved into the goal, they were still spectacular.
Ultimate put on an incredible fight but at the end Storm Youth walked away with all three points.
Incredible game! Exhilarating display!
M.O.M: ADITYA CHOPRA (Storm Youth)
FC KICKERS 8-0 Q SQUAD
Scorers: FC Kickers (Cologne 2’, 27’, 51’; Dari 11’; Naoki 13’, 18’; Kenzo 44’; Hori 60’)
The beauty about the sport of football is that it has a way of surprising us. There can never be a definite prediction of who will win against whom. That is what keeps the integrity of this game at the highest level.
Q Squad has been an exceptional team all season long. The junior squad of the Quantum Academy has been ripping apart players much older and experienced than them. They have proved that size and age don’t matter in football.
A much-awaited game between FC Kickers and Q Squad was a beauty to watch. FC Kickers stomped Q squad out of their home ground.
FC Kickers looked to have come with a game plan that made them confident even before the game began. The manager had outlined a strategy and they executed that brilliantly.
The whole team contributed to the win. They played a game styled around ‘Total Football’ where they spread the ball from the right and left backs onto the wingers thereby laying open the defence for the strikers to manoeuvre from the centre.
It wasn’t just the movement of the ball but the movement of the players among themselves that allowed them to dominate the game.
Q squad had no idea whom to guard because FC Kicker’s mid-fielders and defenders were in-sync with the way they switched up and down the field.
The goals were beautiful to watch; like in the second minute Cologne freely chests a free-kick pass and tapped it over the keeper. This shouldn’t have happened. It was poor defending by Q Squad.
Then a corner kick was converted into a goal when unmarked Noaki ran in from the right, flying through the air in such a way that his body was parallel to the ground and as fast as a bullet heads the ball into the net; one of the best goals of the season. Speechless!!
Q squad was rattled from the start. Rithwik Dutta tried to get the team to come together by controlling the game but it was just not enough against the brilliance of the Japanese side.
M.O.M: Noaki (FC Kickers)
Sunday:
STORM FC 5-0 HIGHFLYERS FC
Scorers: Storm FC (Tushar Walia 11’; G. King 12’, 55’, 58’; Boaz 36’)
When the stakes are high, as a human being you are driven to work harder to achieve that very thing that seems to be out of your reach. In sports, the stakes are at the highest when the season is almost about to come to an end. The same was true at TAL Delhi for Storm FC and Highflyers FC.
Storm FC came with a mind to score as many goals as they could and also win in the process. Highflyers have been in high spirits with some great performances the last couple of games. Storm FC has set their site their eye on the Adidas ‘Never Follow’ board. The battle there is close between Phoenix and Storm FC.
Storm FC killed it on the field. They rammed Highflyers with world class like performance tearing apart the little game plan that Highflyers had put together.
The front three were running havoc for Storm FC. They bombarded Highflyers with set pieces, technique while spreading them out so that their strikers could drill in some goals.
Storm FC’s players like G. King, Boaz, Tushar Walia, and Namay were intimidating in the front, running circles around the defence and found the net five times out of their 19 attempts on goal.
Highflyers’s keeper was exceptional as well. He made some really astonishing saves.
The funny thing and also the little disappointing moments of the game was when a lot of open goals were missed. Some incidents like Devansh Thakkar not converting a one-on-one against the keeper.
Storm FC missed numerous chances as well. Though the game was won by Storm FC both the teams played exceptionally well.
M.O.M: G. KING (Wishwakings)
Q SQUAD 0-3 PHOENIX FC
Scorers: Phoenix FC (Chaitanya 3’; Fulgence Kouame 6’, 40’)
The intensity and rivalry in a game are at a higher level when the teams playing each other are close to winning or they have just experienced a defeat they did not expect. Well, the teams playing match two were fighting for the first spot on different tables.
Q Squad had just had the biggest loss of the season when they were defeated by FC Kickers. Phoenix, on the other hand, entered the game to retain their first spot on the Adidas leader board. So both the teams were pretty worked up in their minds already.
Phoenix attacked early on and in the third minute saw Chaitanya converted a pass from Namay to take the lead. If the early blow wasn’t enough, they had easily given away a second goal allowing Fulgence to sidestep the defence and put one into the nets.
Q Squad played on and actually took control of the game with Sreejit controlling the game. His strikers weren’t able to convert some of his passes. R. Dutta, on the other hand, was the star of the game yet was unlucky.
Raghav of Phoenix made the tackle of the week, sliding in to kick the ball out and deny Q Squad wingers a break that could have been dangerous in front of the goal.
With such intensity, numerous bad referee calls; both the teams were going for each other’s throats. Sreejit received a red card for talking back to the referee. Fulgence was also booked for a horrible tackle on Dutta as the mid-field literally made a joke out of the big striker. These incidents were sour on both the teams and a lot of commotion lead to an interesting but also a very unsatisfying outcome.
At the end, the teams did congratulate each other and upheld the spirit of the game and phoenix retained their spot on the Adidas leader board.
M.O.M: FULGENCE KOUAME (Phoenix FC)
FC KICKERS 3-0 SEN Q
Scorers: FC Kickers (Cologne 3’, 16’; Hori 23’)
Having come off of a comfortable win the previous day, FC Kickers were in a light mood. They seemed confident and ready to roll.
Sen Q, on the other hand, was short of their first playing eleven due to various reasons and so fielded a much-unprepared team.
FC Kickers were in a title contending mood as they scored early in the third minute with Cologne blasting a loose ball from inside the box. They practically used the game as a practice session because the players were in a wild ‘shoot on target’ mode. They had 18 attempts on goal.
Sen Q wasn't a team to easily bow. They played their heart out. The defence made a huge impact on the outcome of the game. The back four were shaky at the start but in the second half, they played like beasts. Though FC Kickers had shots off target they had a hard time breaking them.
FC Kickers never failed to entertain either with their style of play or the way they score. One such moment came right before half-time when a cross from the right flank was missed by the defence and cologne brilliantly tried a diving header which was saved by the keeper.
All in all Sen Q put on a solid performance even though they lost.
M.O.M: COLOGNE K (FC Kickers)
FC DWARKA 2-0 ULTIMATE FC
Scorers: Dwarka FC (Nikhil Gahlot 36’; Pawan Pangty 42’)
The game between Dwarka FC and Ultimate FC was the decider to see if Dwarka FC would be crowned champions. A win would ensure they were but a draw or a loss would ensure that the title race was still open.
The game was intense. Dwarka FC pressed hard but Ultimate FC as always has surprised some of the biggest teams. Dwarka learned that it wasn’t going to be an easy game.
A sudden change in weather brought the game to a pause. On resuming, the game did not lose its intensity.
The match took a turn when Dwarka was awarded a penalty and later an indirect kick on a dangerous play which was questionable. However, this sealed the deal for Dwarka FC as the champions of TAL season 2.
Now the battle is on to see who will come second as four teams are neck-on-neck for the spot.
M.O.M = Akshendra (FC Dwarka)
