Last Updated: Saturday, 6 January 2007
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They say that a
tie is like kissing your sister. So, unless your sister is the
fourth best prostitute in Kazakhstan, a tie is not much fun at all.
And it’s even less fun when the tie is against a Nordic team that
was down to 10 men about 30 minutes into the game, and the player
they had sent off their best one. The only consolation is that we
were down 2-1 late in the second half before Rosie climbed up on
Roddy’s shoulders and headed in his second goal of the day to make
the final score 2-2. This leaves our destiny still in our hands for
the NSCL title with one more game against Nordic to come. We took to the field with a strong lineup and confidence that we were back on our favored turf surface. Cloudy started in net with Dave H and Al in the middle of the back, with Randy J on the left and, if memory serves, Doc on the right. Cam and Rich started in the middle with Gord on one side and the late-arriving Rod (damn that Chilliwack traffic) on the other. The not-hung-over Rosie started up front with Rob P. A strong bench contingent included Gino, Graham, Kenny, Randy A, and JC. We also had a strong coffee club, led, unfortunately, by our departing amigo Martine. He was continuing to recover from an ankle injury caused by fighting his way through the crowds at Limerick Junction. We missed him on the pitch today and will miss him both on and off the field in the future. Make sure you call us for that over 30’s tournament in Guadalajara, Martine! Martine was ably supported in the coffee club by a number of masochistic Coveside supporters including Mr. Ward Senior, Andy, Russ, Brad Fussypants, and Tim, who was still recovering from a slight concussion suffered when he was elbowed in the head by the Malones keeper the week before. Just to recap that incident, the Malones keeper stepped into Tim with an elbow to his head and gave him a concussion. The ref in that game warned Tim. It was good to see Angelo out to ref the match this week. The early stages of the game saw Coveside finally playing the kind of football that has eluded us for several weeks. It was good, simple, pass and move stuff and we were creating chances for ourselves. A couple of good saves from the Nordic keeper kept things at nil-nil until a sublime one-touch pass from the at-times-brilliant-at-times-grumpy Rob Paul released Rosie. The keeper got a hand to his hard shot but couldn’t keep it out and it was 1-0 Coveside, a lead that, given our play at that point in the game (foreshadowing), we deserved. Speaking of concussions, a very early challenge by T, or T-bor, or T-eabag, or whatever his nickname is, earned a yellow card by laying Gord out. Gord went straight up for a header and T-eaCosy went horizontal for the header from about 5 yards away. Gord took his second blow to the head in two weeks and left the pitch singing You’ll Never Walk Alone. Unfortunately, T-eenypolkadotbikini seemed to have overdosed on caffeine before the game and he kept flying into tackles, which was both out of character (anyone who comes over after the match and apologizes for a tackle is a good guy in my book) and ultimately self-punishing, as a studs-up, flying tackle on Richie got him sent off in spite of Richie’s request to not give the red. Nordic were now down to ten men, down 1-0, and with their best player off the field. To their credit, they raised their game. And ours dropped. The good passing that had characterized our early play vanished, as did the movement, as did our ball control. When you struggle with passing one game, you can write it off as a bad day. When it’s two games, you can still say it’s a blip. When it’s three games, you can blame it on the fact that we’re a better team on turf. But when you pass the ball and have crappy movement for four games in a row, guess what—that’s who you are as a team. At the moment we are a team that does not pass the ball well and does not move well off the ball. Perhaps instead of thinking of ourselves as the defending league champs we need to go back to thinking of ourselves as underdogs who need to outwork their opposition in order to win. If that Evangelist preacher admitted that he has been doing bung-bung in the anous with a male prostitute, surely we can admit that we need to work harder? (Author’s note: this is my fourth match report in a row so I’m starting to get bitter and twisted and running out of funny lines. And Amar is going to be out of town for most of the next two months. Please, someone, help. Can we restart this summer’s match report rotation again?) Anyway, half-time rolled around with the score still at 1-0 to us, and Cloudy had barely been troubled in our net. We seemed well in control. The second half, unfortunately, saw us continue to rely too heavily on the long ball and to be too static in our movements (unlike all of us after Speer’s excellent post-game burrito feast). When we got chances, we seemed to be just an inch or two away from connecting. Cam in particular has been eaten by the Gino snake recently, as a combination of good saves by the keeper and some bad luck kept him off the score sheet despite multiple chances. At the other end we still looked pretty solid, as Nordic wasn’t creating much. But—and I’m going to give them their due here—they continued to play hard and, for much of the second half, they played the better football. In spite of the fact that they only had ten men they kept working and kept pressuring us into turnovers and mistakes. And, to be frank, they deserved their equalizer when it came. It was off one of the toughest plays to defend—a corner hit hard to the near post and a flicked header. It shot into the net for a 1-1 tie. But although they deserved their equalizer, I’m not so sure they deserved their next goal, as we gifted it to them with a turnover in our end. Nordic's forward beat the last man back and produced an excellent finish with a hard shot past Cloudy. Suddenly things had gone from 1-0 Coveside to 2-1 Nordic and all the momentum was going their way. And when we switched from 4 to 3 at the back, but puzzlingly went to 3-4-3 instead of our usual 3-5-2, we were unsure of our positioning and left them an excellent chance to put the game away at 3-1. But Cloudy came off his line to slide, block the shot, and make the save of the season. If that had gone in it would have probably sealed up the game and made it very hard to catch Nordic for the league title. That save seemed to wake us up and we began pressing and playing a bit better. We were tiring and that was causing some mistakes and lazy passes, but Nordic, having played most of the game with 10, were tiring even more and spaces were starting to open up. The keeper got a fingertip to a cross that Rob Paul just could not glance into the net. Cam, Ross, and JC all went close. With only a few minutes left, Rosie climbed in a crowd to meet a cross from the right wing with a textbook downward header to tie the score at 2-2. This goal took the energy out of Nordic, and the remainder of the game was spent in their end with us pressing for the winner and them hanging on. But it was not to be. At the final whistle, Bernie cursed and a Nordic defender shouted “Yes!” This summed up the feelings of the two sides. All credit to Nordic for battling hard and playing well with 10 men and earning a point. The tie meant that the league title is still very much up for grabs. Nordic is presently four points behind us with two games in hand, so two victories would see them two points ahead of us. If we win out and they win out, we’ll have to beat them in our final encounter to take the league. But unless we start playing better the chances of us winning out are slim. The beers and laughs after the game restored our good humor, and thanks to Speercooker for making up yet another post-game feast. Let’s think underdogs for the rest of the year and get back to enjoying our football, starting with practice this week. Or at least let’s enjoy the beers and ogling after practice. |
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