Birkirkara Under 15s Lose Direct Clash Against Qormi

by Jonathan Spiteri - 5th May 2013

What was being considered as the most important game of the campaign proved to be a huge disappointment as Birkirkara were beaten 3-0 by Qormi at the Luxol Stadium on Saturday, in a direct clash for promotion to Section A via the second place. This is a huge blow for our promotion aspirations as now Qormi have now taken charge of the race with only 2 games left. The major cause of disappointment was the fact that Birkirkara could not play this match with their best formation. There were a lot of players missing due to various reasons, to the extent that an outfield player, Owen Amato, had to act as a goalkeeper since none of the actual goalkeepers were available for selection.

The game was an uphill struggle as from its early stages. Our players seemed to be all over the place, probably due to the fact that some of them had not played competitive matches on a regular basis. On 20 minutes Qormi were in front as a long range effort was not dealt with properly and ended up in the back of the net. There again, this goal was fruit of the inexperience in goal. Birkirkara reacted with courage and wasted two very good goalscoring oppotunities with only the Qormi goalkeeper to beat. The first half ended 1-0 in favour of our opponents.

Any encouraging words and tactical changes by coach Mr Charles Micallef proved to be futile as in the opening minutes of the second half, a defensive blunder gifted Qormi the second goal. A misplaced pass when starting play from a goal kick was intercepted by one of Qormi's forwards who passed the ball to his unmarked team mate who was left with nothing else to do than to slot the ball home. This proved to be too much for our depleted and inexperienced squad and it was no surprise that they fell further behind as Qormi scored through a direct freekick. Birkirkara tried to at least grab a late consolation goal, but even when presented with a good chance in the shape of an indirect freekick in the Qormi penalty area, this was not executed in the best way possible leaving the score 3-0 until the final whistle.

Mr Micallef would have surely preferred to comment on a different match, especially due to the circumstances which did not allow him to field a team competitive enough for this do or die clash. “I am very disappointed since we sure have quality players in our team, even though today we had various players missing and had to play without a proper goalkeeper. The work rate was low and it seems that when we have these direct encounters, we fail to keep up the momentum built in prior games. The challenge is still on and we have to keep on working hard till the last game of the league.” Up next is the clash with Zebbug Rangers at the Rabat Grounds on Saturday 11th May starting at 14:45.

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