Cup Run Continues

this is the Match report by Senior League

The other Tuesday game was an all-Premier affair at Farley Way as ProChance Football Academy welcomed Desford. Both sides have been playing some good football of late, and the 3G surface lent itself to a fast, breathtaking game, with six good goals and an encounter so enthralling, it seemed a terrible waste of time to take any notes, so it was better to just stand on the sidelines and enjoy the evening's entertainment.

Within a matter of seconds, it became clear that neither side would be likely to be keeping a clean sheet. Macauley Parnell gave Desford the lead after just five minutes as he drilled home low into the corner. ProChance began to fashion their own chances, and Oliver Jagroop scored the equaliser midway through the half, breaking through the defence and holding his nerve for the finish. Desford snapped back quickly, as Szymon Donnerstag put them back in the lead within a couple of minutes after he got into some space out wide, before the first of three remarkable goals came just before the half-hour, when Desford intercepted a ProChance attack, the through ball caught the hosts slightly off-balance, and Parnell picked the ball up just inside the ProChance half, with a centre-half hot on his heels, he instead set his sights, kept running, holding off the efforts of his marker, before shooting past the keeper just inside the box to finish off a stunning solo run with panache, as Desford underlined their domination of the first period.

It was clear that the next goal would go a long way to determining the shape of the tie, and as the spectators came out of the bar for the second half, the strike came within a minute of the re-start, and this goal was even better still. Acer Szilak dispossessed his opponent high up the field, about 35 yards out, got past him, ran down the left wing, but was unable to cut in, forced out wide, as he began to run out of road. Yet the hosts were unable to get the ball off his toes, and Szilak went the long way round, before eventually squeezing past two defenders on a piece of grass between the dead-ball line and the opponents about the width of an Oyster card, and then shot from the tightest and most acute of angles, as slender as a cut of Parma ham, to slide the ball across the face of the keeper to creep in at the far post.

4-1 up, and it looked like the visitors were about to take the academy to the cleaners for six of the best, as one or two heads began to drop, but Desford's fitness began to drop first, and actually, it was ProChance who were marginally the better side in the second period, though not by enough to carve out a large number of serious chances, though they had a goal early on in the second half chalked off after the referee Mr Jarvis spotted a push on a Desford defender in the box. Desford looked set to close out a comfortable win, but in the dying stages, sub Sunni Nichols curled in perhaps the best goal of the night, a 20-yard effort that turned through almost 90 degrees in the air to beat the visiting keeper all ends up and drop into the corner. All in all though, Desford were good value for the 4-2 win, a fair outcome, as they booked their place in the quarter-final.