'9 ⚽️ 1-0 Roman Shapiro goal
'13 ⚽️ 1-1 Aviv City goal
'30 ⚽️ 2-1 Zack Shooter goal (penalty)
'70 ⚽️ 3-1 Niv Florentin goal, Roman Shapiro goal
'75 🔴 Red Card: Aviv City
'80 ⚽️ 3-2 Aviv City goal
'85 🔴 Red Card: Aviv City
Top row (from left to right): Reuben Lewis, Idan Yohanan, Dmitry Semenyuk, Ben Mordukhovich, Roy Konfino, Zack Shooter, Joey Spijer, Matt Keston and Jayden Youngleson.
Bottom row (from left to right): Sam Sank, Talia Trakman, Niv Florentin, Roman Shapiro, Beni Polnauer and Asher Goldberg.
What a way to end the season! Playing against a team who had recently had a fantastic run of results, beating the 2nd placed team in the table and beating us last time 3-1 in a game where we weren’t at our best.
This time half our team were missing and not only did manager Matt Keston make his debut, Sam Sank played for the last 20 minutes when Reuben Lewis got injured and we had help from three other new faces, one of which was Talia Trakman.
In a game where Talia would make history as the first-ever woman to play in the IFLI, a lot of the team were worried about this game going very wrong, but against all the odds it went the other way.
We started the game with great composure, nice passing and looked comfortable on the ball, and this is the reason Roy Konfino didn’t have anything to do almost the entire half.
On 9 minutes, Roman Shapiro chased down their goalkeeper who smacked the ball against Roman and it rebounded into the net to make it 1-0 to us - a great goal all of his own making.
The lead would only last 4 minutes though as a wonder strike from 35 yards beat Roy into the top corner to make it 1-1. After that it was again us who were creating all the chances, Asher Goldberg had a good chance from a one-on-one but failed to score and blazed over.
But, on the 30th minute our persistence would pay off and Zack Shooter won a penalty with some smart play, which he himself converted nicely to make it 2-1.
On the 35th minute, Asher was stamped on very badly in the back and was then injured for the rest of the game, their player was only yellow carded but it should have been given a straight red!
Talia then came into replace him to make history and what a game she would have, constantly breaking up the play and winning the ball back for the team. The half would finish 2-1 with us very much on top and the half time team talk was about doing more of the same.
In the second half, we again started strong and the defensive line looked solid every time Aviv City came at us, again giving Roy very little to do. On the 67th minute, Niv Florentin was head locked by their defender who again should have got a straight red but was just told to leave the pitch for 10 minutes.
Three minutes later, Niv was passed through by Roman, cut in from the left-hand side and slotted the ball home for a wonderful finish to make it 3-1.
Shortly after our goal, Matt clattered into Reuben whilst clearing the ball off our line to prevent a goal - he lost his contact lens and had to come off. Sam Sank, who wasn’t scheduled to play and had no kit with him, borrowed clothes and got dressed to play alongside Matt for the very first time in Inter history.
Shoutout to both James Green and Eli Kolach who then became the team managers for the final period and helped us a lot with organisation.
On the 75th minute, the same player that that head locked Niv finally saw red for a bad challenge and they were down to 10 men. They did however then score five minutes later from a floating free-kick which we should have defended better and it was probably our worst moment of the game.
They then came us strong but some great defending and tireless work from the midfield stopped everything coming at goal. With five minutes left, Aviv City went down to 9 men for another red card when the player who stamped on Asher took out Niv and we held out for a historic win and 3 points.