Football: Airtel Cup - The Lions sneak past 10-man Foresters |26 August 2016
The Lions sneaked past 10-man Foresters in a narrow 2-1 victory at Stad Linite on Thursday afternoon in an Airtel Cup group match.
The Lions were worthy winners of this encounter and could even have won by a wider margin against a Foresters side who took time to settle as they gave a debut to their latest foreign import, Burundian striker Dumu Ndayithimiya who has come to replace Ugandan Mugisha Ayubu. But even the Burundian player never looked the part as he looked out of sorts.
The Lions were going in search of their first win in this group and they took the game to their opponents and were hard done in the 24th minute when referee Alistair Barra turned a blind eye for what looked like a penalty on young Norris Bibi as he bore on goal and was flattened by Mike Lesperance.
Four minutes later at the other end, Foresters also appeared to be denied a penalty after some good approach play involving Ernesto Doway who set up Andy Mougal whose long range effort was spilled by goalkeeper Raphael Moustache and Ugandan Tonny Kizito latched onto the loose ball to shoot at goal but he was clipped from behind by Romial Oreddy. The official was not convinced it was a penalty.
Just past the half hour mark, The Lions’ Liberian midfielder James Soto Roberts collected Denis Auguste’s lofted pass but could not direct it on target and in the 35th minute, Soto again fluffed a decent chance from Romial Oreddy’s pinpoint cross as he headed wide from close range with goalkeeper Elvis Leopold stuck to his line.
Soto though made amends for his earlier misses with a superb individual goal in the 40th minute as he performed a ‘Zidane twist’ on the ball to leave two Foresters defenders ‒ Malagasy captain Edgard and Antoine Charif ‒ in his wake before stabbing the ball low past goalkeeper Leopold to make it 1-0 at half-time.
The Lions stretched their lead in the 57th minute after Malagasy Clariel’s fierce shot was just kept out by substitute goalkeeper Kitson Cecile and Soto tried to drive home the loose ball but his shot was charged down. And Oreddy managed to squeeze his shot in the net for a 2-0 lead for the Lions.
Foresters then suffered a major setback when young defender Adrian Choisy quite stupidly got himself sent off with a straight red card for retaliation on Soto after a Foresters’ free kick had come to no avail.
Coach Rodney Choisy’s Foresters though threw caution to the wind despite being reduced to 10 and in the 63rd minute, Marlon Sophola should have done better from captain Edgard’s free kick but he headed wide from a good scoring position.
Foresters rode their luck in the 68th minute as The Lions countered swiftly and Darrel Damou linked up with Clariel whose strong shot was blocked by goalkeeper Cecile and seconds later, Soto burst through but in a one-on-one situation the Foresters custodian stopped him in his stride.
Foresters were given a lifeline in the 71st minute from Mike Lesperance’s hopeful cross in the penalty area and The Lions captain Andrew Onezia inadvertently turned the ball past his own goalkeeper to make it 1-2 for a grand stand finish.
Foresters had a gilt-edge opportunity to salvage a point in the 76th minute from substitute Elvin Estico’s corner to captain Edgard who played the ball back in the box to Kizito but goalkeeper Moustache tuned away his header as The Lions held on to collect their first three points in this group.
There was another sending off after the final whistle when Foresters goalkeeper Cecile was alleged to have thrown insult at assistant referee Hansley Petrousse who brought the matter to the attention of referee Barra who took immediate action as he flashed out a straight red card to the goalkeeper who was furious and tried to attack the official but was held back by The Lions coach Gavin Jeanne in what was not a pleasant sight and surely there will be consequences for such attitude towards the officials.
As for the match, coach Jeanne was just relieved for a win at last as they had been the only team in the Mahe group without a victory.
“We hope this victory will be a welcome boost to the team in our league campaign as we tried to put things right for this match but there is still a long way to go to fix things in our camp,” noted coach Gavin whose team are being marred by injuries.
For his part, Foresters coach Rodney Choisy was honest enough to admit his team were below par.
“We did not play well as we had rotated the squad and we only tried to fight back when we were 2-0 down but we will now focus on the league race,” coach Choisy said.
R. J-L.