Week Five – October 17th

- This week will be the first time all Tier-2 Teams will be in action so a great opportunity to scout the opposition if you haven't watched the competition yet

- Usama Mahmood made his long awaited debut for Ihsan and the mercurial forward put up a goal and three assists to match the output from teammate Omar Sabri, if Ihsan can get consistent attendance then they are sure to redeem themselves from last season where they missed the playoffs

- The feature game for Tier-2 this week will see undefeated Haya take on Zuhd in a potential preview of the finals, Haya has been steamrolling teams and has a whopping 14 goals in their first three games and have won games by an average of three goals.  Zuhd could just as easily be 3-0 as well as their first loss was due to an unfortunate bounce against Ikhlas and their last game was a scoreless draw against Shukr (whom they had pasted 6-1 the week before).  It will be interesting to see how Coach K deploys his team to shut down Naeem Akhtar who has been a force all season.

- The only Tier-1 game this week pits Emaan against Taqwa in a match-up where the winner gets a leg up on the final playoff spot.  As we approach the mid-point of the season this will be a key game and you never know when a tie-breaker will come in handy; Emaan won when these teams met on September 26^th as Hisham Ali scored late to steal his team a 2-1 win

- There was a trade completed in Tier-1 just in time for Week Five games, Ihsan will send Erfan Bhanapatel to Taqwa for Junaid Mohammad.  Both teams benefit in some way, Ihsan gets a veteran forward in Mohammad who can score while Taqwa adds speed and a big shot in Bhanapatel.

- Ikhlas comes into this week not having played in a month by virtue of bye weeks and the Eid break, it will be interesting to see how much rust they have as they won their first two games but did not really dominate either match-up.

- Yaqeen and Ridha both enter this week in search of their first win and if panic has not yet started to seep in it will soon as neither team can afford to keep dropping points if they want to make the playoffs. 

- Ridha's offense has been weak so far this season, putting up just three goals in three games.  That said they have also surrendered a whopping 11 goals in three games so they have work to do on both ends of the floor to turn things around.  They will have to face Shukr who has been hot and cold this season as they blew out Yaqeen to open the season before getting mauled themselves by Zuhd only to end their last game in a scoreless draw.