East London Men’s First Team Powered through to the next round of the BUCS National Trophy following their 1-0 win against Essex.
East London came into the game off the back of a 4-0 win against the same opponents last week in the league.
Too Comfortable
The comfortable win the week before looked to have caused East London to initially take their foot off the gas.
A slow start for the home side saw them almost go a goal down from an attempted chip that luckily traveled just over the bar.
However, East London slowly started to grow into the game, coming close 15 minutes in as Dan Medina hit the crossbar following a cleared East London corner.
Only a few minutes later East London came close again, a long-range effort was spilt by the Essex keeper and saved again from the rebounded effort.
Back-and-Forth
Essex had a few chances of their own late in the half, a mix-up in the East London backline left the Essex forward through one on one, but East London goalkeeper Stefan Mitai-Rotai was able to stand strong and make the save.
Essex were able to put the ball in the net just before the half came to a close, a through ball over the top of the East London defence allowed their winger to put the ball through the keeper’s legs, however, the offside flag had been raised.
East London’s Head Coach Ryan Gordon looked frustrated at the half but remained cool-headed in his team talk and his message to the squad was clear “Play our game!”.
Two aspects of East London’s game were working very well throughout the game, the energy and speed from Right-Back Jaiden Odle saw him move further forward to cause havoc for the Essex defence, alongside East London’s dominance in the Air from both Odle’s long throws and Medina’s inch-perfect corners.
Both of which came into effect for the East London goal 79 minutes in. Odle turned on the jets down the right-wing, before doing a pirouette around the defender and having his shot pushed out for a corner.
The Winner
Following the cleared corner East London put the ball back into the box and hit the crossbar once again before Centre-back Peter Ojimen followed up and headed it into the net from a few yards out.
Essex began to put on a lot of pressure in the final 10 minutes, throwing players forward in the search of an equaliser, however, East London were able to hold on and seal their spot in the next round.
Following the game Coach, Ryan Gordon said he felt that it “could’ve been a better performance… but I’m happy with the result.” East London Captain Jonathan Sánchez felt similarly believing that East London “made the game harder for ourselves” before adding that East London, “adapted to their (Essex’s) style of play, and that messed us up completely in the first half.”
Next up for East London is another home fixture against Brighton who currently sit fifth in the ‘Men’s South Eastern Tier 1’, 13 points behind East London who sit in first, with only one win in their first six games.
Rising East reporters grabbed a few interviews after the game with the winning squad:
