Bangkok Casuals Football League Div. 1
After the previous week’s home match had been postponed due to a waterlogged pitch, Pattatya City were on their travels last weekend to play the Turkish side Anatolia in Bangkok on yet another very wet playing surface.
Despite the damp conditions, City made the early running in the game with Tshuma sending over a few dangerous crosses while at the other end of the field, Anatolia struck the City woodwork to remind the Pattaya players, if they needed it, that they taking on one of the top teams in the division.
This fact was driven home soon after when Anatolia took the lead through a penalty kick after their forward was brought down in the area and things got worse for City when they conceded a second goal through some slack marking in the defence.
The Pattaya outfit knew they had to engineer a way back into the match before the break and they managed to do just that as Dipta sent a curling free-kick past the Anatolia keeper and into the net to reduce the deficit to one goal at half time.
If the first half of the match had been a fairly even contest, the second half was anything but as the Turkish team laid siege to the Pattaya goal and repeatedly broke through the visitors’ offside trap only to be thwarted time and again by the heroics of the City goalkeeper who kept his team in the game. Eventually, however, even he was powerless to prevent Anatolia scoring a third and decisive goal that put a seal on the match.
There was just time for City’s Dipta to go on another mazy run and create a good chance for Paul Fox, but the latter’s shot flew high over the bar. Final result: Anatolia 3, Pattaya City 1.
