ICEL Football League: Season 26 Part 4
King's Commonwealth Cup Semi-Finals 1st Leg
Sunburbia FC 0-2 Yillog City
RGS Athletic 2-1 Monksville United
The semi-final draw threw up the matches that the neutrals wanted the most - the two strong in-form teams of RGS Athletic and Monksville United playing each on one side, and the two rather out-of-form teams, and also the underdogs in practical terms, in Sunburbia FC and Yillog City.
Yillog City showed why they're a Premier League (albeit one almost certainly relegated to the Second Division), and why Sunburbia are at the bottom of the Second Division, and threatened with relegation. It was a slow start to the match, with only three shots in the first 20 minutes, but Yillog soon picked up the pace, leaving Sunburbia to withdraw and withstand a barrage of attacks. And they did it rather well, until the 41st minute when a Finn Rafferty free-kick gave the Premier League side the lead. The second half was much more open and attacking, as Sunburbia saw the need to get a few goals of their own. And they came close several times, and twice they saw the ball cleared off the line after goalmouth scrambles, and Muller in the Yillog goal pulled off a few decent saves of his own. But it was Yillog who would get the second goal of the match, courtesy of a Maritza Zenin chip on a Yillog counter-attack. Yillog will be confident of a place in the KCC Final, with the second leg taking place at the Yiftred Arena and being 2 away goals to the good.
Meanwhile, RGS Athletic had a tough match at the King Iqbal II Stadium, and most pundits expected it to be close with the number of close shaves when looking back at RGS' cup 'struggles' this season. It was predicted to be an open, even-handed game, and that was what the 90,000 capacity crowd got. RGS dominated the early exchanges, but it was Monksville who took the lead, and much against the run of play as well - Matthewsianian defender Silvana Overmars popped up at the back post to head in Monksville's first corner of the match. The match became much more balanced after that, but the match went into half-time 1-0 to the underdogs. Going into the second half, RGS turned up the pressure, and within 20 seconds scored the equaliser, after Dennis Jagger launched a long ball forward to Josephine Fevison to run onto. She beat the defenders to the ball and curled it past Monksville goalie Casimiro Penn. Fevison completed the brace 5 minutes later, as David Lawrence pounced on a loose pass in the midfield and slid it through to Tia Drenas, whose shot was parried into Fevison's path. 2-1 down, Monksville properly woke up, and tightened up at the back, as did RGS; the match ended at 2-1, but the last few minutes were still entertaining. The second leg looks a somewhat open affair, with Monksville only a single goal down and in possession of an away goal.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 24
Seaton Town 2-2 RGS Athletic
Royal Jam FC 0-1 Tuntingone FC
Norrion Rovers 1-1 Xilon OC
Olympia FC 2-0 Walston Brook Albion
Polkation FC 0-2 UR Town
VLC FC 6-0 Pontifucia United
Seniors FC 3-0 YLW FC
Nile Bridge 3-2 Yillog City
And despite that close-fought cup win, RGS couldn't get the three points against Seaton Town, looking second best for much of the match, with a lucky own goal giving RGS the point. In contrast, their closest rivals VLC FC, usually quite a defensive team, hammer 6 goals part Pontifucia United, whose goal difference is looking increasingly bleak (-25, compared to Polkation's -12, and a -1 and a -9 further up). Walston Brook's slump continues, registering a 5th straight loss. Currently 12 points clear of Pontifucia, their record in the first half of the season should be enough to keep them safe. The same could be said of Tuntigone, who notch up another win to move a point behind Walston. Another Norrion draw gives VLC a 4 point advantage in 2nd, who are 7 points behind the leaders. YLW are 17 points from safety with 18 to play for, so anything except a YLW win and Polkation loss/draw, guarantees their relegation. Yillog are playing YLW, and are 14 points off safety; a Polkation win and Yillog failing to win sees both Yillog and YLW go down.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 25
RGS Athletic 2-3 Royal Jam FC
Seaton Town 0-0 Norrion Rovers
Tuntingone FC 0-5 Olympia FC
Xilon OC 0-1 Polkation FC
Walston Brook Albion 1-1 VLC FC
UR Town 1-0 Seniors FC
Pontifucia United 1-2 Nile Bridge
YLW FC 1-3 Yillog City
Has their slump ended? Against all expectations, Walston Brook Albion stop the losing streak with a home draw against VLC FC of all teams - VLC FC should count themselves lucky that RGS Athletic suffered an even more surprising home defeat at the hands of Royal Jam FC, narrowing the gap by a single point to 6. Norrion Rovers can't find a goal against Seaton Town however, which leaves the gates open for UR Town and Olympia to narrow the gap on the Globe Cup spots - Olympia's demolition puts them tied with Norrion on points (behind on GD), and UR's narrow win over Seniors puts them two points behind the pair. At the other end of the table,
YLW FC are relegated. A lacklustre performance, like in most of the season, saw them lose to Yillog City, not that a win would have done anything as Polkation also won. Those points won't help Yillog much, being 14 points off safety with 15 to play for - they face the same situation as YLW did last week. Pontifucia lost to Nile Bridge, which sees the former 5 points from 13th, and looking like they'll go down barring a miracle, and the latter 11 points clear of 14th and looking like they're safe.
King's Commonwealth Cup Semi-Finals 2nd Leg
Yillog City 1-1 Sunburbia FC (AGG: 3-1)
Monksville United 2-0 RGS Athletic (AGG: 3-2)
The last match before the Final itself, and the second legs of the Semi-Finals were as exciting as the first legs. In the first match, all-but-mathematically-relegated Yillog City hosted Second Division side Sunburbia FC at the Velanari Arena, carrying a 2-0 lead from the first leg. But, as expected, the underdog didn't go out quietly, and came out of the blocks all guns blazing, which caught Yillog off guard somewhat, forcing them to go defensive. Sunburbia spent most of the first half-hour camped in the Yillog half, before they managed to break out and balance the game's flow. But it was a 30-yard scorcher that broke the deadlock, and it went Sunburbia's way around 8 minutes before half-time. It was a chance; a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. They pushed on and kept pressing, four times hitting the woodwork, and Yillog fans were on edge, but their nerves were settled 6 minutes past the hour-mark, as Blas Farran poked home an equaliser to seal the tie at 3-1 on aggregate - Yillog City were through to the Final.
But all eyes were really on the second match - the second leg between Monksville United and RGS Athletic, with RGS Athletic coming off the first leg with a 2-1 lead, but Monksville managed a crucial away goal, to keep the tie quite open. The match started off very slowly, and quite contrary to the predictions in the run-up, as both sides refused to budge defensively, and the first half pretty much descended into a cagey midfield brawl, as neither side could really keep the ball, and when they did, there wasn't an option to advance play. All-in-all, the first half saw just 4 attempts on goal, with only 1 on target. The yellow card count was some spectacle though, with Monksville leading that 5-3. And the second half started uglier, with Toby Callahan shown a straight red card for a late two-footed lunge on Monksville's Asadullah Iqbal - he had to be stretchered off, but luckily, there was little damage done. A man down, RGS were forced to reshuffle, which freed up some space in the midfield, and Monksville took advantage; Slanie Savage opened the scoring from with a well-struck shot from the edge of the D, which took the tie to 2-2, and would have seen Monksville through to the Final on away goals. 6 minutes from the end, that place in the Final against Yillog City was sealed, as substitute Delano Amini headed home a parried free kick to make it 2-0 on the night and 3-2 to Monksville on aggregate.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 26
Norrion Rovers 1-0 RGS Athletic
Olympia FC 1-0 Royal Jam FC
Polkation FC 0-1 Seaton Town
VLC FC 1-0 Tuntingone FC
Seniors FC 2-0 Xilon OC
Nile Bridge 0-0 Walston Brook Albion
Yillog City 1-4 UR Town
YLW FC 3-2 Pontifucia United
Missing one half of their defensive lynchpins for three matches, RGS struggled to keep out the Norrion attack, and it was some last ditch defending and excellent goalkeeping that kept the scoreline at just 1-0, but it's a result that narrows the gap at the top to just three points, with 4 games to go, after VLC's controlled victory over Tuntigone. Wins for Olympia and UR Town keep the race for the second Globe Cup spot open as well. At the foot of the table however,
Yillog City are relegated after a 4-1 humbling at home at the hands of UR Town, whilst YLW FC score only their 2nd win of the season thus far, narrowly beating Pontifucia United at home 3-2, and denting the visitor's hope of survival - they would have seen this as three easy points, and with Polkation and Xilon both losing, a chance to close the gap to safety.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 27
RGS Athletic 3-1 Olympia FC
Norrion Rovers 3-0 Polkation FC
Royal Jam FC 0-1 VLC FC
Seaton Town 0-1 Seniors FC
Tuntingone FC 2-1 Nile Bridge
Xilon OC 0-0 Yillog City
Walston Brook Albion 1-0 YLW FC
UR Town 2-0 Pontifucia United
A sucker punch for Olympia FC at the King Iqbal II Stadium, as RGS Athletic score a vital win to keep their title lead at 3 points, whilst Olympia now fall 3 points behind 3rd place Norrion, and 3 points off a Globe Cup spot as a result - in addition, they are out of the title race. UR Town take advantage of that the following day, with an easy win over relegation favourites Pontifucia United, who remain 5 points off safety after Norrion beat Polkation, but with only 9 points on the table, the situation is looking increasingly dire. Xilon's home draw with Yillog lifts them 6 clear of relegation, whilst Seniors' surprise away win over Seaton takes them 11 clear, and to safety, along with Tuntigone FC and Nile Bridge, leaving Pontifucia, Polkation and Xilon as the remaining candidates for the drop. At the top, RGS lead VLC by three points, with Norrion in third 7 points off and UR in fourth nine points away - in all honesty, it is a two-horse race going into the last three matches.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 28
Polkation FC 0-2 RGS Athletic
VLC FC 1-0 Olympia FC
Seniors FC 1-1 Norrion Rovers
Nile Bridge 1-2 Royal Jam FC
Yillog City 2-3 Seaton Town
YLW FC 0-3 Tuntingone FC
Pontifucia United 1-3 Xilon OC
UR Town 1-1 Walston Brook Albion
And the gap is still 3 points, and time is running out for VLC FC, as RGS sweep past Polkation as expected whilst VLC FC just squeak past Olympia FC at Vorgan Park; RGS' win also renders Norrion's and UR Town's draws redundant, as they were knocked out of the race anyways - the Walston Brook derby saw Albion come from behind to register their 13th draw of the season. And in the key match at the bottom, Pontifucia United fall to Xilon OC at home, which takes Xilon 9 points clear of relegation and into safety; Pontifucia could well have been relegated in this match had Polkation beaten the league leaders, and will be relegated next week if they fail to beat Seaton Town or if Polkation beats Seniors FC. At the top, VLC will need to win both remaining matches, and hope that RGS fail to win both - and they can go a long way to overhauling RGS Athletic in the Lodger City derby next weekend. RGS, realistically, only need a single win from either match, as the GD difference of 9 should be enough to secure the title on goal difference. However, at least VLC can look forward to UICA football next season, as they have secured at least a Globe Cup spot, being ahead of 4th place UR Town by 8 points - UR are two behind 3rd place Norrion, with Olympia a further two behind, so there is still plenty to play for going into the last two weeks of the league season.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 29
RGS Athletic 2-0 VLC FC
Polkation FC 0-1 Seniors FC
Olympia FC 5-3 Nile Bridge
Norrion Rovers 3-0 Yillog City
Royal Jam FC 1-0 YLW FC
Seaton Town 2-1 Pontifucia United
Tuntingone FC 6-1 UR Town
Xilon OC 1-0 Walston Brook Albion
Three big pieces of news on one day - and the first is that
RGS Athletic are champions for the 18th consecutive time, and they did it in convincing fashion at the King Iqbal II Stadium, and in front of their fierce local rivals and only remaining title challengers to boot. VLC never looked like they were going to win from the get go, as RGS displayed a sort of ruthlessness that has at time deserted them this season, especially in some of the rounds of the cup. But they turned it up when it counted, and 2 quick goals just before half-time raised home fan's spirits and sunk the VLC FC team. And with that,
VLC FC are off to the Globe Cup - as are Norrion Rovers after they cruised to a 3-0 victory over Yillog City, whilst UR Town were unceremoniously humiliated 6-1 at the hands of Tuntigone FC (which would have been major news in its own right in most of the rest of the year). Olympia FC's 8-goal goalfest at home to Nile Bridge was rendered useless as a result of the Norrion victory, but they still overtook UR Town to go fourth. Norrion can still go second with a win and a VLC loss, to go second on a vastly superior goal difference. The third piece of news was the
Pontifucia United are relegated to the Second Division after losing on the road to Seaton Town, which gave Polkation FC a sigh of relief after they lost earlier in the day to Seniors FC at home. It had been on the cards for a while, having spent most of the second half of the season in and around 14th, but they just couldn't stop the distance to safety getting bigger and bigger.
ICEL Premier League Matchday 30
Seniors FC 1-1 RGS Athletic
Nile Bridge 4-3 VLC FC
Yillog City 0-1 Polkation FC
YLW FC 1-1 Olympia FC
Pontifucia United 0-0 Norrion Rovers
UR Town 1-1 Royal Jam FC
Walston Brook Albion 2-2 Seaton Town
Xilon OC 0-0 Tuntingone FC
With all of the key battles all but sorted (apart from Norrion possibly overtaking VLC FC for a higher seeding in next year's Globe Cup), all that was left, for most teams, was to play for pride and a maybe a couple of league places. But the big story of the day was VLC FC's surprise 4-3 loss on the road to Nile Bridge, despite being 3-0 in the lead at half-time. And it put their 2nd place position in doubt, but a few minutes later, news came through that Pontifucia United had pulled out a last gasp performance to deny Norrion the win, holding them at home to a 0-0 draw. YLW also finished their abysmal season on a high, with a surprise home draw against Olympia, but UR Town also failed to take advantage, after drawing themselves at home against Royal Jam FC. Yillog City finished their poor league season with a loss to Polkation FC, but they still have the King's Commonwealth Cup Final to look forward to next weekend, and it promises to be a tight match.
King's Commonwealth Cup Final
@ Lodger City Memorial Stadium
_ Monksville United 1-1 Yillog City
(AET: 2-1)
Durand (28') (57') Farran
Chrysanthopoulos (109')
There were two camps of thought as to how the final could have panned out - one thought that it would be an extremely close-fought match between the side at the bottom end of the Premier League and the side that finished second in the Second Division, and the other thought the in-form Monksville United side would sweep the floor with the really out-of-form Yillog City. In the end, the match panned out in the first way, and it was certainly an entertaining spectacle.
Monksville started the brightest of the two, and applied a lot of pressure to the Southpasturer team early doors, as Slanie Savage twice was denied by a sprawling Garen Kinsella in the Yillog goal in the first five minutes - including shifting his weight to bat a hand at a deflected shot whilst his body moved the other way. Yillog quickly grew into the game after that, and within the first quarter of the match, both sides had over 5 shots on goal. The breakthrough came just before the half-hour mark, with Avril Durand at the heart of a one-touch move involving seven Monksville players, and culminating with her curling the ball beneath Kinsella from the corner of the 6-yard box after a brilliant reverse pass from Savage. That goal didn't hurt Yillog's resolve though, and just a minute later, a slip by defender Silvana Overmars allowed Amya Howarth to run onto the ball and thread a ball through into the path of Blas Farran, only for Casimiro Penn to come out of his goal and just reach the ball before Farran did. The play went back and forth, with some last-ditch defending and some superb saves at both ends of the pitch to close out the first half - of note was an expert save from Penn in the Monksville net from a free kick drilled low into the near corner.
Onto the second half, which started in much the same vein as the first, with Monksville the quicker of the two to come out of the blocks, but Yillog grew back into the game quicker than they did in the first half. After about ten minutes of the half, Yillog began dominating the play, as Monksville legs had to rest - the barrage on Penn's net began with a dipping long range shot from Freek Lewry that Penn could only push up onto the crossbar. And not long after (shortly before the hour mark), Yillog scored to level the match at 1-1, with Howarth skipping past the Monksville RB Haider Reeve and cutting inside at the byline to drill a ball across the six-yard box, but behind Farran, who managed to stick out her leg and back-heel the ball just inside the far post, and beyond Penn's reach. It was a single, albeit extremely large, blip on the Monksville defensive effort in the second half, as Yillog continued attacking and forcing the issue to try and take the lead - at one point, Penn was called to make a triple save, starting with a pushing a curling Howarth shot out onto the post, getting up to parry Farran's diving header and then blocking Alisanne Bullock's toe-poked shot before the defenders could clear the ball. Monksville recovered though, and with about 15 minutes to go, restarted their own attacks, and with 9 minutes left on the clock, saw a shot from Patience Chrysanthopoulos cleared off the line by Overmars - the goal-line replay saw that a sliver of the ball was still on the goal line, but most of the stadium had initially thought it went in. A few minutes later, Yillog had a credible penalty appeal turned down after they thought Cairns had handled the ball in the box, but it would have been a dubious decision had it been awarded given how unclear the incident remained on replay.
As it was, the match went into extra time, and both sides were clearly worn out, as the tempo shifted downwards by several orders of magnitude. But the quality of play was still apparent, and neither side held their punches even in fear of conceding a potential winning goal. The first 15 saw a couple more penalty shouts turned down, although neither were particularly convincing, and it also saw both sides rattle the woodwork at least once - Farran's 25-yard free kick curled beyond the outstretched glove of Penn, but it could only curl in as far as the outside of the post, whilst at the other end, substitute Charline Eliassen saw a shot deflect off Brent Abood's outstretched foot, and loop over Kinsella and off the top of the crossbar - it came back into play but was quickly cleared. But the closest attempt came from Yillog's Sufyaan Veitch, whose narrow angle shot cannoned off the crossbar, and then the post before the rebound was deflected over the bar.
Half-time of extra time came and went, and the play began to get more cagey, as the match looked likely to go to penalties, and neither side wanted to lose beforehand. But it wasn't to be, as just 4 minutes into the second half, a Yillog corner was collected immediately by Penn, who straight away launched the ball upfield for Eliassen to run onto. She got to the ball ahead of Adam Zamani, who was slow to react, and it became a three-on-one situation as Eliassen, Farran and Chrysanthopoulos all bore down on Kinsella in the Yillog net, with the Yillog players desperately busting a gut to get back and do something, but it was to no avail, as Eliassen dinked one way, and played the ball t'other way to Chrysanthopoulos who duly slotted it past Kinsella. 2-1 and Yillog's heart and resolve were finally broken. Even though there were still 11+ minutes to go, Monksville reorganised at the back and held on for their second KCC triumph in their third final, after losing to RGS Athletic in the inaugural edition of the cup, and then winning it in Season 21.