Birkirkara eliminated
by Matthaeus Grasso - 4th April 2010
A terrible decision by the match officials, just a few minutes from the start of the match, led Valletta to a 3-1 victory over Birkirkara in the quarter-final stage of this year's tournament.
In fact, after just six minutes, Jamie Pace was served just outside the Birkirkara penalty area, where he was clearly in an offside position, yet somehow, neither any of the assistant referees nor the referee himself noticed this, and Pace managed to beat Mora in a one-on-one situation.
It wasn't the best of days for the Birkirkara defensive department, as time and time again, Valletta's strikers were creating havoc in front of our goal. After Mifsud and Prso missed a good chance each, it was the former who managed to head the ball in after twenty-two minutes, to make the score 2-0.
With our team still shocked, and evidently lacking the sort of determination that has so far driven us to the pole position of the BOV Premier League, Karl Pulo had a glorious chance of clinching one back, but the Valletta defence managed to clear just in time before he could slot the ball in the net.
The referee ordered the players to the dugout with the 'Lilywhites' leading by two goals.
When the scoreboard was marking the 62nd minute, Steve Bezzina fell close to his own penalty area, with Michael Galea taking control of possession before serving Trevor Cilia, who hit low into the path of Andrew Hogg.
Soon after, Valletta captain Gilbert Agius, was shown a double yellow card for passing abusive comments to the referee.
With the Birkirkara players putting more emphasis on attack, our opponents were using the counter-attack option to try and score again, and almost managed to do so through the highly controversial Michael Mifsud, whose shot went just over.
Ten minutes from the end, a glorious cross by Joseph Zerafa from the left, was met by Michael Galea who towered way above the rest of his team mates and opponents to reduce the margin to just a single goal.
Birkirkara went close to clinching a dramatic equalizer twice, both through Trevor Cilia. In the first attempt, the Birkirkara-born player saw his shot parried away by Hogg, and in the second attempt, the same player was a whisker away from managing to chip the ball above the opposing goalie, following a bad short pass by Jordi Cruyff.
With the 'Stripes' still piling on the pressure, Mifsud's low shot hit the post before the ball crawled back to Jorge Mora, and moments later, it was Declan O'Brien who rounded-off the match, as he managed to hit low past our Spanish goalkeeper, with the ball hitting the post before creeping past the goal line.
With this result, our team is now out of the U*Bet FA Trophy, and can now fully focus on the main task, that of bringing the BOV Premier League down to 'Wied it-Tigri'.
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