Five Goal Thriller Confirms the Lineup of the Second Final of the Year!
MFA Photographer, Chris Benn covered the second Middlesex Premier Cup semi-final, on Saturday last and recorded a splendidly exhilarating, action packed match. The competing teams, Kensington & Ealing Borough and FC Deportivo Galicia are currently both members of the First Division of the Combined Counties League.
Kensington & Ealing Borough had reached the semi-final with a convincing 7-2 away win at Harefield United Reserves. FC Deportivo Galicia had emerged from their quarter final against British Airways via a penalty shoot-out, following a 2-2 draw. Before that they had beaten Enfield Borough 4-3 at home, in round 1.
Kensington & Ealing Borough went ahead after 10 minutes when Eva Batousol side-footed Jabir Laraba’s pass home. Play then switched from end to end with great regularity. The best of many scoring chances fell to Deportivo’s Anton Fernandez, who shot narrowly wide after being released by a through ball.
Mohammed Belamouadden doubled Borough’s lead, from close range, after 40 minutes. Anton Fernandez then netted for Deportivo, from Juan Devia’s pass but the goal was disallowed for offside.
However, Deportivo did pull a goal back just before half time, through Juan Devia, whose dribble past several opponents in the penalty area was finished with a shot on the turn.
The second half followed the pattern of the first, with even more goalmouth incident. Borough’s Jabir Laraba fired wide from Eva Batousol’s pass but for a period the visitors did the bulk of the attacking. Both Devia and Fernandez, after some excellent approach work by Ali Soussi, shot over the crossbar from good positions.
The hosts appeared to have wrapped things up in the 75th minute, when Miguel Lopes des Matos hit a towering freekick, from around 45 yards out, which dropped acutely over the unfortunate keeper into the net.
However, the visitors continued their offensive and Juan Devia broke clear in the 89th minute, rode the advancing keeper’s challenge and netted. Deportivo kept up the pressure throughout the 5 minutes of added time but the nearest that they came to equalising was a shot by Anas Ozouln, which just cleared the crossbar.
Final score: Kensington & Ealing Borough 3 FC Deportivo Galicia 2
Kensington & Ealing Borough will play St Panteleimon (3-1 winners against Rayners Lane) in the final at Rectory Park on Wednesday, 26th May.
Our official photographer Chris Benn, as ever, has provided some fantastic imagery from the game. If using these photos please give credit.Chris has selected 10 highlight images which can be found here.
Readers wishing to view the full gallery of images can find these here.
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