Mġarr women join Birkirkara at the top after Swieqi victory

After six rounds of playing action, the MFA Women’s League has two leaders in command with Birkirkara and Mġarr United sharing top spot with 13 points.

While Birkirkara were serving a bye this week, Mġarr were pitted against fellow title hopefuls Swieqi United in a fixture that had to determine who will join the Stripes as leaders of the league.

The Greens had already faced Birkirkara, drawing 0-0 while this was Swieqi’s first direct encounter of the season.

The first 45 minutes were one way traffic as Mġarr opened a three-goal lead. Midfielder Amber Grech opened the score when she pounced on a rebound after captain Brenda Borg struck the crossbar, to curl the ball past Swieqi goalkeeper Jodie Attard.

Few minutes later, Borg orchestrated Mġarr’s second goal when she put forward Francesca Chircop on course towards goal with a delightful throughball before the latter fired home.

Mġarr could have extended their lead with a few more chances before midfielder Kayleigh Chetcuti tried her luck for Swieqi’s only chance of the half.

Just before half-time, the Greens found the third goal when Chircop capitalised on a Rodiana Borg’s cross for her fifth goal of the season, as she is tied with Birkirkara’s Alishia Sultana and Swieqi’s Dorianne Theuma in second place of the league’s top scorer list.

After the change of ends, Swieqi tried to stage a reaction but Mġarr’s resilience kept them at bay before the Greens wrapped up the victory with a late goal from defender Maia Debono, for her first goal of the season.

Mġarr have now scored 17 goals, conceding none with goalkeeper Patricia Ebejer extending her clean sheet run to 540 minutes while the Greens are now eight games unbeaten between last season and this season.

On the other hand, Swieqi succumbed to their first defeat of the season while failing to keep their goal intact after five league games. Despite the defeat, it was an important game for defender Jade Flask who was making her 200th league appearance.

Raiders Lija and Kirkop United secured two important wins against San Ġwann and Mtarfa respectively, to put daylight between them and their opponents in the second half of the standings.

Denis Guerra’s Raiders were at the back of a 0-0 draw with Swieqi and they registered their second positive result in a row after their 4-0 win over San Ġwann.

Leah Ayres grabbed a brace as she is now the club’s top scorer with three goals. Anna Aloisio and Maya Lucia were the other scorers for Raiders.

Kirkop, on their part, left it late to make sure of their victory with three late goals in the final 20 minutes against Mtarfa.

Roxanne Micallef put the Reds ahead after 10 minutes but they had to wait until the 70th minute to double their lead through Celine Galea. Rodianne Zerafa and Marie Claire Cilia added two more goals to complete the four-goal victory.

The women’s league will now stop for two weeks due to the international window that will see the Malta women’s national team involved in the 2023 Women’s World Cup qualifications.

The domestic championship will then resume on Tuesday, December 7.