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Match report: Overseas School Colombo 3 – 7 Colombo Lions
It’s men against boys, literally…as Lions cruise to victory.

The footballing education of the OSC continued this weekend with a lesson from the resurgent Lions. The, of late, somewhat less than mighty, Lions were in need of a confidence boosting win. It seems they have found the answer, if you are struggling for form and fitness and can’t manage to get a result from anywhere, arrange a match against a bunch of kids who have played 2 matches in the past 24 hours, get a couple of dodgy penalties early on, and then try not to throw it all away towards the end.

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With this recipe for success in mind, the Lions put out a strong starting 11, peter and dani paired together up front and in a break from recent Lions tradition managing to exchange a few civil words with each other as well as some neat passes, and a couple of goals each. Under the cool winter sun on a nice sized pitch up at the OSC things started well enough with an early penalty for a clear handball from a cross shot by Peter, converted nicely by Dani. Wearing the number 9 shirt and relieved not to be starting in midfield, Dani was pulling the strings (well, if you will get me to do the match report…) and soon set up Peter for the second goal with some irresistable skill on the left, Peter pulling the ball down on his chest and making no mistake with the finish from 8 yards.

The lions relaxed and were soon under pressure from the young opposition who have yet to learn when to let their heads drop and accept defeat (perhaps the Lions could teach them a thing or two about this…), there followed a spell of long throws, corner kicks and balls into the box which the lions experienced back line just about managed to deal with, the odd loose ball in the box being lashed wide by the less than convincing OSC forwards.



The Lions on the other hand were clinical in front of goal and another good move, this time instigated by some neat passing involving Peter and Danieli down the right led to a scrappy close range finish from the Italian stallion (who, in keeping with Lions tradition is soon to be expecting a baby girl – congratulations mate!).

So it was three-nil, then something happened which I can’t remember, Peter scored the resulting penalty, and the lions could relax even more and work on the sun tans, while the OSC huffed and puffed to no avail. Suddenly their coach / referee (and wickedly corrupt and bitter Wigan fan) decided this was not fair and awarded them a penalty, which was blazed high over the bar in a great sporting gesture. Shortly after this miss they did manage a goal from close range after the Lions defence was caught out looking for the sun cream.



4-1 at half time, and a couple of changes for the Lions, don’t ask me for details I was playing up front and so was clearly too far from the action to see what was going on back there. In fact the second half was a bit of a blur, the ball was mostly in the air or on the head of the impressive OSC captain. They scored a nice goal (was it their number 23, are we gonna sign him up?). Then came the moment of the match, or even of the season – a goal from Keke Krouch, from a lovely inswinging corner from Rich (the welsh wizard) slammed into the top corner off the face of Krouchy – ‘av it!



By this time the sun had gone to my head, cant remember much at all…they scored again with a ridiculous up and under followed by a rugby style goal line tackle on the, ahem, brave lions keeper (do they not know when they are beaten?), then Jacobo, back from his winter break and playing like a man on a mission to break some young legs scored with a 25 yard shot into the bottom corner, very nice goal although he was perhaps lucky to stay on the pitch after biting a few too many legs and generally scaring people with his facial hair (I think he was actually booked for bringing that beard onto the pitch – there’s no place for that kind of thing in the beautiful game). Nice goal though.



Yours truly came back on for the last few minutes after Krouchy, whose goal and subsequent celebrations seemed to have starved his brain of oxygen, had injured himself trying to emulate Jaco with a crazy long range air shot, some quick feet in the box and a shot into the far corner wrapped up an impressive Lions display and made certain of the MOM award for Dani – although it was a good team performance with mostly solid defending and a hard working midfield display. Can we play them every week?