Malta

Challenge League (Top 6)

Saturday 2nd March 2024

Kick Off 16.30 Actual 16.34

Zabbar St. Patrick 2 Zurrieq 0, attendance 350

34’ 1-0

82’ 2-0

@ Centenary Stadium

Triq ta Vnezja

Attard

ATD 4000

€6 Admission

No Programme.

It took no more than five minutes to do the short walk from National Stadium to the adjacent Centenary Stadium, even via the longer route exiting the former on the far side from where we needed to be. It was opened in 1999 and is a 3G surface with a capacity of 3,000 seats, all on one side, with each club once again allocated half of the stand each. Despite being relatively new, the sight lines are poor, with a low glass screen at the front and the near touchline can’t be seen wherever you sit as it is too tight to the seats.

The match was in the Challenge League, which is tier two in Malta and was a Top 6 match, where the teams that finished in the top half of the table play each other again, retaining their points already gained to date, in order to see who gains promotion to the Premier League at the end of it, with this being 2nd versus 6th in the table.

It was a crazy start to proceedings as Zabbar St. Patrick had a man sent off after just three minutes, bringing down an opposition player who would have been through on goal had he not been fouled. Six minutes later it was 10 a side, as Zurrieq had a man sent off for blocking a goal bound shot with his hand. The penalty was missed though, with the ‘keeper easily saving low to his right. Zabbar did break the deadlock just after the half hour mark, when a ball pulled back from the left was well saved by the ‘keeper, but put in on the rebound by the player who’d seen his penalty saved earlier on.

The second half was played at a much slower pace and Zabbar grabbed the all important second goal with eight minutes left, when a speculative effort from 25 yards out found the bottom corner and should really have been stopped by the ‘keeper. The win sees Zabbar now top the group, although second in the table Melita will regain the lead if they win their game tomorrow.

With the problem of where the bus would be running from after the game, we decided to order an Uber back in to Valletta instead and were picked up less than five minutes after the final whistle.