Venus back with a bang as Arsenal senior teams win

The GulfWeekly/ Citroen Bahrain Ladies League has begun a new season after a short break.

With six competing teams, the format for Season Nine is one league, with teams playing each other twice. The league is comprised of the champions of the last two seasons, Arsenal Ladies, last year’s division two winners and runners-up, Arsenal U21’s and Seef Dental, returning squad Venus and the ever-present teams, Joga TFA and Arsenal Gunners.

The matches will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings until the end of June.

In the first games of the new season, Seef Dental took on the Arsenal Ladies and gave them a couple of scares before conceding the first goal to Nada Al Saeed in the 20th minute and a second to Tala Fathoum three minutes later.

In the second half, the defending champions added a third after a superb pass from Marybeth Sullivan found Reema Al Qassab who calmly put the chance away. Seef ladies came out determined, and reduced the deficit with a well-placed chip by Terry Stevens, but Reema grabbed her second and her team’s fourth to settle the game 4-1 and successfully start the defence of their title.

In another match, Joga TFA clashed with Arsenal U21’s. Both teams had early chances, with the younger girls having most of the possession, but in the 14th minute Alaa al Dirazi swooped on a defensive lapse to give the Joga girls a first-half lead. The U21’s fought back brilliantly after the break, continually giving the Joga defence problems with the pace and directness of their attacks.

After Darya Vyshegorodskaya had equalised with a great long range effort, the U21’s scored again through the returning Phoebe License, last season’s joint player of the term Eleni Tsappis and the prolific Teddy Walton.

After taking a one-term break, Venus returned with a bang, beating an inexperienced Arsenal Gunners 8-0. Showing that they are one of the contenders for the title, they scored through new signing Zain Al Khalifa (4), Staz Salinas (2) and Huda Bucheeri (2).

Venus plaved Joga yesterday and today Seef take on the Gunners as also the all-Arsenal clash between the U21’s and the Ladies.