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Fukuda Denshi, Saturday 23rd January.
An under-par BFC came up against a decent (though, in my view, still some way off their best) Sala and it was Sala who walked away with the spoils, leaving BFC in TML no man's land and rueing the unavailability of key players.
Sala settled into their stride quicker than BFC from the off though it was BFC who had the first real chances of the game with an unsighted Jon Day just putting a header wide and Sho doing the hard work of getting in behind the Sala defence only to miss Day lurking unmarked at the back post. At the other end a long ball into Swinney saw him loop it over to the tall Sala striker Stuart whose shot was well saved by BFC keeper Tomo only for the ball to fall to Swinney who made no mistake as he smashed home a classy volley. 1-0 Sala. The rest of the half was pretty uneventful. Sala could've had another from a set piece and BFC too came close but the scoreline remained unchanged.
BFC knew they would have to fight hard to wrestle back the initiative but with only 11 players on the day they lacked the ability to mix things up. Despite the lion's share of possession in the second half and a passage of play that could've (should've?) seen them draw level it was Sala who scored again when Morson was caught sleeping in the BFC defence for Scotty to beat the offside trap and slot one home. 2-0 Sala. BFC bagged a simple goal shortly after through Pabs and continued to pressurize Sala who for a period of 10 minutes or so seem inclined to let BFC back into the game. But with too many big names away BFC just never quite had enough to turn the screw and draw level while with the end in sight Sala started to relax a bit and play some sensible holding football.
With time running out a speculative long shot from Shige caught Tomo off guard in the BFC goal and the points were sealed. It stayed 3-1. Sala have got off to great start to the year while BFC look to have put their season to bed at only the half-way stage.
Report by James Morson
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