The Men had a good victory against the Dutch side HC Ijsseloever today. The visitors went ahead, but by half time Casuals had equalised with a close range tip-in. After the Dutch conceded an own goal, Casuals scored again from a lifted flick into the roof of the net. Then a nicely worked move found a Casuals attacker on the bye-line, and his short pull back left his centre-forward with a simple lob over the keeper. Ijsseloever reduced the arrears on the break, but Casuals ran out 4-2 winners.

For the first time in their history a team from LCHC is going to represent Portugal at an  European Championship. The ladies won their place among the best last season by winning the Indoor National Championship. This year budapest will be the host for the LCHC Ladies new challenge. The team and Coach like to thank all that made this possible, all sponsors,  club members, partners, friends and family, without you none of this was possible. The team also like to thank a special player that help us during last indoor season (Ugne Chemilauskaite) and she’s an outstanding person.

The U-13s started their Final Four campaign in good form yesterday, catching Lousada off guard with some strong defence and fast breakaways, to lead 3-2 into the interval. But their opponents came out determined to make amends, with strong attacking play and the byzantine substitution rules working against the Casuals, resulting in a 4-8 defeat.

The second game of the day, against CAMIR, saw an improvement in the substitution plan, with Casuals’ weaker formation going out first and holding its own to be 0-1 down; then the older payers pulled ahead after the interval with three goals in five minutes and defended that lead for the final 5 minutes, in spite of some strong CAMIR attacks.

This morning, in the deciding game for the 1^st/2^nd place against Casa Pia, Casuals could not get into the same rhythm they had achieved with CAMIR. Despite being 0-0 at the interval, our hometown rivals saved a penalty stroke and the Casuals failed to capitalise on a green card given to Casa Pia’s strongest player, who in the end scored a hat-trick to leave them decisive 3-0 winners.

The game for third place saw a repeat of the earlier win against CAMIR, but the team really came together with every member playing a minimum of 2 periods. The final score of 3-1 also reflected some amazing saves in front of goal by both the field players and the eventual Dream Team winning goalie. In the end two Casuals were voted on to the Dream Team, making for a generally satisfactory Final Four.

The U18s faced Juventude in their first match yesterday and despite scoring first, were 1-2 down at the break. Juventude pulled further ahead before Casuals could get into their stride, and eventually won 9-3.

This loss lead to a serious reaction in their second game, where they simply steamrolled the Casa Pia team 16-0 to give themselves an outside chance of reaching the Final. This however depended on them beating Lousada this morning: a thrilling game started badly, with the Casuals conceding 3 goals in the first 5 minutes. They pulled one back, but then conceded another right on the half time hooter. The second half saw Casuals gradually pull back to within 1 goal, and in the last minute their second penalty stroke should have taken the game into penalty strokes, but the Lousada keeper made a good save to give them a 7-6 win.

In their last game for 3^rd place, Casuals rotated all their players and were 0-4 down at the break. They then pulled back to 4-4 to take the game into extra time: when a nicely worked move hit a defender’s foot on the line, they finally put that stroke away for a 5-4 win.

Meanwhile the Men played MHC Drunen outdoors: after going a goal down to the Dutch team, Casuals equalised from a solo run, and then took a 2-1 lead. They were unfortunate (or naive) to concede 2 goals in the last 3 minutes to lose 2-3.

The Ladies were unsuccessful in their bid to defend last year’s title of Indoor Champion in Lousada. Yesterday they got off to a bad start, losing 3-5 to Sport Club: their opponents sat back to defend against the Casuals pressure, but were astute in using fast counter attacks to score at regular intervals. In the evening match against a talented young CAMIR side, the Ladies redeemed themselves with some fast and resolute attacking hockey which, despite some weak umpiring, brought them a deserved 6-4 win.

This morning they played Lousada in the last qualification match: an exciting game ended 3-3 and, in the ensuing penalty shoot-out, Casuals converted 2 of their strokes and their keeper defended all 5 of Lousada’s shots for a 5-3 win. This left three of the four teams tied on 6 points, with Casuals missing out on a place in the Final on goal difference.

Their only consolation was that they were awarded all 3 of the individual prizes:

Claudia Fidalgo won ‘Top Scorer’ and ‘Best Player’, and Andreia Rebelo won ‘Best Goalkeeper’. Inês Campos (U15) won also a place in Final-four U15 Dream Team.

Meanwhile the U15s had a tough start yesterday against Lousada (the eventual Champions), losing 1-12. But in their second match against old rivals Casa Pia, they upped their level to win a pulsating game 4-3, with the winner coming from a penalty corner in the last minute.

In this morning’s game against a difficult Juventude side they held out for the first 15 minutes, with their keeper making some fabulous saves; but they were eventually beaten 3-0. In their last game against Casa Pia for 3^rd place the whole team was rotated and, despite going into the break at 1-1, they ended up losing 2-5. However the improvement in their play over the weekend was notable.

See tournament photos:

With only a mathematical chance of reaching the Finals, the Men played their last two indoor fixtures this week. On Wednesday evening against Futebol Benfica, they were 2 goals down after 15 minutes but, after seeing one of their shots from a difficult angle come back off the post, they were encouraged to pull a goal back just before the break. When they went level at 2-2 in the first minute of the second half, a comeback looked on the cards, but a total of 4 penalty strokes – 2 to each team – were to prove crucial. Futebol Benfica converted their first to go 3-2 ahead, Casuals scored an excellent equaliser from a lifted tip-in. They then had their first stroke brilliantly saved, whilst the hosts converted their second for a 4-3 lead. When the Casuals had their second stroke saved and had a goal from a penalty corner disallowed, they took off their goalkeeper to try to force the pace: even here they were unlucky to concede a last minute corner, which Futebol Benfica drilled past the defender for a 5-3 win.

In today’s match against Carris, Casuals were 0-3 down at the interval. They mounted a brief comeback with 2 well-taken goals on the break to reduce to 2-4, but from there on they were caught in possession far too often and Carris scored regularly to finish 9-2 winners.

In Yesterday’s Winter indoor tournament the U13s finally pulled it together, using what they had learnt so far playing indoor for U15, U13 and U11 (of their 15 registered players, all 13 fit/available ones played in the tourno) to play some nice passing hockey. With a little help from the U15 coach, they beat Casa Pia B 9-0 and Casa Pia A 6-0.