LONDON VARSITY 2022- KCL Football Review

KCL Women’s Football Club sealed the Varsity victory for King’s with a 4-0 win over UCL on Monday. The KCL ladies, lining up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, started strong in the Coles Park Stadium, home of Haringey Borough FC, and took the lead in the first few minutes of the game. They added a second around the 20-minute mark and scored two in a close succession after the 30th minute to make the score 4-0. The second half was marred by pulled muscles and cramps for a couple UCL players and one King’s player became sick in the middle of the game. There were no more goals during the game, though, King’s came close a few times.

After a half-hour break, the men’s teams took the pitch. Just as the ladies earlier, the KCL Men’s Team started the game really strong and pinned the UCL team to their goal. They had a number of chances within the first couple minutes and even managed to hit the crossbar from a header after a corner in the 2nd minute of the game. In the next 10 minutes King’s continued to dominate and had three more shots.

From the 15th minute though, UCL started to take control and have more possession. But it was King’s who got close to go one up after a UCL defender almost headed an own goal in the 34th minute. A few minutes later UCL was the team which got close to scoring the first goal of the match. After a lively attack in the middle of the pitch they managed to hit the woodwork. There was nothing to separate the two teams after the first 45 minutes.

There wasn’t much action in the beginning of the second half. 11 minutes into the second half however, from the middle of nowhere King’s finally took the lead, only to be ruled out by the referee for offside. Then, in the 72nd minute KCL hit the woodwork for the second time in the game after a clever attack on the right.

To the KCL fans’ sadness, despite all the KCL chances, it was UCL who took the lead only a couple minutes before the final whistle. The King’s goalkeeper punched a close shot to a UCL striker, who scored from close distance. The King’s team couldn’t do much in the dying minutes, and UCL added a second in the last minute of stoppage time after a defensive error from the Reds. The game ended in a 2-0 defeat for the KCL lads, who did everything they could, and were more dangerous throughout the game, just to lose it in the last minutes.