We held Alfa Roma close through the match last week, but D Ethan Pinnock put in a header to give us a lead we would never give back, with GK Jordan Pickford putting up another clean sheet to put down the European club. We will welcome another European club to the Calabash this match week, welcoming the old club of Inter Istanbul to our confines. Istanbul is coming off a rough loss to Andes, and so are hungry to come back and get higher up on the table in the match against us. Defender Kostas Tsimikas has risen up to become an effective starter in the past 2 games, playing 151 minutes and getting 2 clean sheets during that time. We'll remain in the main kits in the third game of the homestand. #StayGold

They don't ask how, they ask how many, and last week, Atlético earned itself one (1) win against St. Mungo to improve to 3-0 on our homestand. We finish that up this week by welcoming IFK Stockholm to town as we look to be the second team to 30 points on the season. This week, we finally highlight F Jordan Ayew, who among other things, earned the assist on our only goal of the match (scored, incidentally, by last week's key player, D Nathan Collins).

Coming off a big win over Istanbul, the Falcons return to Cairo and host Berlin 1871 at The Pyramid. We're sitting at fourth on the table, and look to keep pace with the teams ahead of us, as our record of 8-0-4 has us in a pretty good position. We're at home, so we're wearing the traditional home set, and our featured player this week is defenseman Reece James, who's returning to form following an early season injury. #TheGoldStandard

Even though some of our biggest stars were injured, it didn't stop other Golden Lions from stepping up to take down Munich. D Kostas Tsimikas and M James Ward-Prowse both proved valuable assets for the club for matchweek 12, setting up several key passes for the front, and F Ollie Watkins hit one in to put Joburg up top for the rest of the match. We ended up winning 3 out of 4 games in our long homestand, and we'll take a short road trip to Santiago to face CD Andes for what should be an excellent mid-table face-off. As for a player that has benefited from our injuries is F Chiedozie Ogbene, putting up quality minutes on the wing while getting a shot on-target last week. We'll be in the clash kits for only the second time all season for this critical matchup. #StayGold

We managed to get out of a low-scoring affair with CD Andes to take the win for the week and jump them in the standings for 5th place. We now stand just 2 games back behind first place, and our climb to the top will be helped by the most of the other teams at the top of the table are playing each other. That includes the Golden Lions too, as we head back home to the Calabash to face Berlin, who sit 7th in the table as of now. It will be a competitive match with our squad nearly back at full strength, though a late injury to Ollie Watkins prevents us from being at our absolute best. It will not stop us, as young midfielder Mo Kudus gets the spotlight once again as our most productive player. The young starter made himself an assist, had one off-target shot, created two chances, sent in two accurate crosses, and won four out of five tackles in last week's game, proving himself quite useful anywhere on the pitch. We'll hope that he continues that usefulness as we return to the standard kits in another top-of-the-table match. #StayGold