Non-League and Academy football writer

On late Sunday afternoon on the 3G pitch at Donkey Lane (by Enfield Town FC), OIR faced Hilltop, in the second leg of the semi-finals of this year’s Somali British Champions League. Step 7 side OIR lost 3-2 to step 5 side Hilltop, in the first leg, at Ark Academy, during the previous weekend. Both very talented sides, it was Hilltop who progressed in to the final of this year’s competition, with a 3-1 second leg win over OIR, the winners of the 2024 edition of the competition. 

The pace in which this game had started at was good. Early on in this contest, and OIR would hit the crossbar, with Asad Ahmed’s cross (from the right-hand side of the pitch) in to the Hilltop penalty area, hitting the crossbar. After a fairly even start (OIR had to play against the wind during the first half) to the game, Hilltop would take the lead during the first half. A long diagonal forward pass from deep by Aarush Yogarajan, would find the run of Makael Scott, in behind the OIR defence and on the right-hand side of their penalty area. Makael Scott would then finish low and powerfully beyond the OIR goalkeeper, AbdiAziz Hassan, and into the bottom left-hand corner of his goal, 0-1.

Hilltop would finish the first half the better of the two sides, following their opening goal of the game. After Hilltop player Ali Mohamed had turned with the ball on the edge of the OIR box, he would pass the ball to Makael Scott, on the right-hand side of the penalty area. This time however, Scott’s low effort went wide, across the face of the goal. Then, and shortly after a Hilltop player had hit an excellent long distance effort against Hassan’s crossbar, the OIR goalkeeper would make a good and important save. As he did well to push the ball over his goal, following Anis Asoweh’s powerful headed effort off the pitch, which had bounced up and was heading towards the roof of the goal. The Hilltop player had connected with Makael Scott’s cross in to the OIR box.

OIR had shown good signs of improvement, during the early stages of this really well attended cup tie’s second half. As the result of a short forward pass from Mohamed Yaxye, to Asad Ahmed, on the left-hand side of the Hilltop box, his resulting low effort under pressure, would go over the goal. Impressive OIR midfielder Abdirahman Ahmed would then hit a powerful effort over the Hilltop goal, following a free-kick layoff on the edge of the Hilltop box, as OIR continued to go in search of a leveller.

 The game continued to see chances, as the second half progressed. Next, and after Asad Ahmed would go forward with the ball, to the edge of the Hilltop penalty area, he would see his low effort on goal be gathered by Hilltop goalkeeper Ahmed Omar. Following on from a good turn with the ball (on the left-hand side of the OIR box) by Makael Scott, his resulting low effort was well saved by the feet of the OIR goalkeeper, at his near post. 

OIR were getting ever closer to getting an equalising goal in this game. And not long after Abdullaahi Khalif had seen his effort from close range (after meeting Adam Adam’s free-kick from the left flank, in to the Hilltop box) be importantly cleared off the goal-line by a Hilltop defender, OIR would make it 1-1. Adam Adam’s well delivered corner-kick towards the back post of the Hilltop goal, was headed back across the face of the goal by Abdirahman Ahmed, with Mohamed Yaxye then heading the ball in to the goal from close range, 1-1.

Just at OIR were really looking likely to go on to draw level on aggregate, Hilltop would quickly regain a two goal cushion, overall in the tie. With Ibrahim Salih going forward with the ball, before then slipping a forward pass towards the run of the impressive Hussein Mahdi, who had gotten in behind the OIR defence, on the right-hand side of their penalty area. From there and despite the best efforts of AbdiAziz Hassan, Hussein Mahdi would finish low in to the goal beyond the outrushing goalkeeper, 1-2.

Following on from Hilltop’s hugely important second goal of the second leg, and Hussein Mahdi came close to scoring his second goal of the game, after turning with the ball inside of the OIR penalty area, before hitting a low effort narrowly wide of the goal. Hilltop would effectively seal the win and their place in the final, by adding another goal to their name, later on in the game. As the result of some unselfish work from Makael Scott, the Hilltop player would receive the ball in a bit of space on the right-hand side of the home team’s box. Instead of going for goal however, Scott would square the ball for Mohamed Ali, who finished in to the goal off the underside of the goalkeeper’s crossbar, 1-3.

After Hilltop had seen out the rest of the game, they would ultimately book their place in the final of this year’s competition, where they will face Birmingham based side FC Olympia. This was a very good contest, and a really good game to report on (thank you to the league’s organisers, for their welcome and for their help with providing the team-sheets), and although Hilltop really showed their class, OIR put in a really spirited performance on the day. Hilltop were very clinical in front of goal, but OIR pressed and challenged well for every ball, as they knew that they had to really go for this game and for the win, right from the very start. There were some very impressive performances on the pitch, however.

For OIR, I thought that their central-midfielder, Abdirahman Ahmed, had a really good game for them, and he was my OIR player of the match. He got an assist on the day, but he also showed some real quality on the ball, and the intensity in which he played the game was very good, before he unfortunately had to leave the pitch late on because of injury. My overall player of the match, despite competition from Hussein Mahdi and Mohamed Ali, was the creative Makael Scott. Impressive in the forwards areas and with his movement off the ball in the final third, Makael Scott scored a goal and provided a good assist.