JJ Makes Cats Pay

Totaalvoetbal put in a hard working performance to earn a point at runaway leaders ThunderCats F.C.

The visitors put five men in the defence in the hope of nullifying an attacking ThunderCats side while also putting an extra bite into their tackles.

This robust approach affected both sides early in the game as Leonardo Borja and Alexis Barrere suffered minor injuries in the first 10 minutes which forced the managers into taking no risks and replacing them both.

ThunderCats made the better start as an attacking force with Nelson Queimado forcing Ard Leemans into a smart stop before Juliano Leite flashed a header wide with the ‘keeper scrambling.

Shirsh Vajpayee briefly had Totaal on the front foot but his lobbed effort went over the bar and ThunderCats responded by taking the lead. Carlos Partini slipped a pass to Silvio Falcao who unleashed a shot which had too much for the young Leemans to handle.

Worse was to follow for the visitors as Metelo was forced off with a knock and they were, once again, indebted to Leemans for blocking a Fabricio Cidade header.

The second-half saw the game tighten up with no openings at the beginning of the 45 minutes. Cidade became the latest player to succumb to an injury but with twenty minutes remaining the hosts looked in control of the situation.

They missed a chance to put the game to bed with Queimado smashing a free-kick wide of goal and they were made to pay for this miss. Johan Juffing picked up a pass from Edwin Hayter before delivering a finish of quality to earn the visitors a share of the spoils.

“I think the point was reward for perseverance and guts.” offered Meeblind.

“They have dominated possession and pushed us back for long periods. Leemans has performed exceptionally well in goal and when we got our chance we took it expertly.

“ThunderCats will be disappointed and rightly so but tactically we have set-up well and showed we are a match for any side. Meelas is a top class manager and for any team to take points at Thundera it has to be classed as a job well done.”