It was a busy weekend for the Casuals, with four matches and a surfeit of goals! In the newly devised joint Ladies and U18s league, the two Casuals teams played each other yesterday morning and, although the Ladies played well in patches, they were no match for the U18s who won 6-0.

In the lunchtime Men’s match against CAMIR, the Casuals were simply too strong for the visitors, winning 11-0. It was good to see more imaginative forward play from the Men, with goals coming from several good passing moves and the scoring shared between 6 different players.

The Veterans went down 2-4 to Belenenses in the afternoon.

This morning the U18s played their second match, this time against Viso Ladies. They clearly found this game easier, slotting 11 goals for a convincing win.

The Men travelled to Lousada today for their second league fixture. Against strong opponents, the game got off to a bizarre start: after 5 minutes the score was level at 1-1, from two own goals. After 10 minutes, Lousada had pulled 2-1 ahead, only for Casuals to level again with a great reverse stick shot from the left side of the circle. Despite several chances on either side, there were no further goals before the break.

Lousada started the second half strongly and, after breaking the deadlock with a fierce penalty corner, they stretched their lead to 5-2 on 53 minutes. But it is a sign of this young Casuals team that they then took the game to their opponents: they finally converted one of their penalty corners and were unlucky not to be awarded a penalty stroke for a fairly blatant foul on a forward about to shoot with the keeper stranded. Even a diving shot as the final hooter sounded was unable to narrow down the final 3-5 score line, but there were many promising signs in this display against last year’s champions.

Lisbon Casuals Men’s team played the first league match of their new season against Viso today. In persistent rain at the Estádio Nacional, they opened the scoring when a finely judged diagonal ball to the far post was converted with a spectacular diving tip-in in the 8^th minute. The same player was on hand to make it 2-0 when the keeper’s save allowed a close range shot from the rebound, but shortly before half time the visitors pulled a goal back from a loose ball in the circle.

It was 15 minutes into the second half before a fierce Casuals cross into the circle found a defender’s stick for an own goal to extend the lead to 3-1. An excellent free hit from just outside the Viso 25 found an attacker at the post for a cool tip-in and, despite several chances going begging, the final score remained 4-1 to the Casuals.

Ângela Lima Top Scorer 2012/13

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