By Georgia Garnett
IT’S the 94th minute.
Crystal Palace Women are up 2-1 against Aston Villa, moments away from clinching their first-ever home win in the WSL.
But Villa are driving down the pitch, hoping to do anything that could level the game and end their dreary four-game losing streak.
Ebony Salmon attempts, but it’s headed away.
She passes to Missy Kearns – she shoots, but Aniek Nouwen makes the block.
The ball flies to midfield, where Katie Stengel is waiting, as is Villa keeper Sabrina D’Angelo.
D’Angelo gets the ball, but makes a mistake – she passes it to Stengel.
Sensing the opportunity, Stengel sprints down the field and fires from long range and it goes in – it’s 3-1.
VBS Community Stadium erupts – surely that’s it, right?
Moments later, the final whistle blows and the crowd of 1,130 explode.
They’ve done it – Crystal Palace finally have a home victory in the WSL.
The win, just their second of the season, broke a 12-game winless streak in the league for the Eagles and was their first-ever victory over Aston Villa.
Post-match, Nouwen, in her debut on loan from Chelsea and her first start in over a year due to injuries, said: “It feels really good, I can’t describe it. We’ve been waiting for a long time, we were ready for it.
“We’ve been really building on this as well just fighting, and you can see everyone just fighting for it.
“The home fans were really important, we could really hear them the whole game and I think that just helped us fight more throughout the game, they were amazing.”
In just his third game as Palace manager, Leif Smerud lauded his team’s resilience in one of the most crucial games of their season.
He said: “It’s a high-pressure game coming into it like this – we knew we had to win and the way the players dealt with that pressure, the way they stuck together and approached the game, I’m really happy with that part.”
While Palace remain in last place in the WSL following Sunday’s win, they now sit just one point behind Aston Villa, one point behind survival.
With games remaining at eighth-placed Everton and at home against ninth-placed West Ham and tenth-placed Leicester City, the path to avoiding relegation suddenly looks more manageable.
Smerud added: “I think it’s only the start – I’m very glad we got it today and I think everyone that was here will probably come back for Arsenal [in two weeks] because it was football entertainment as we like it, just a bit nervous, but that’s football, so we like those games.
“I think we are on development, so we need to build, I just need to keep working with them, this builds a belief and also gives me more answers that we can build on going forward.”
Crystal Palace return to action on Saturday 22nd March as they travel to Everton for a 2pm kick-off.
