Orangemen vs Juventus 4 August 2012

For a team calling themselves Juventus there wasn’t a whole lot of Italian words and phrases being used as the Orangemen took on their opponent under the lights at Bryant Alternative School losing in a well played match by a score of 7 to 3.  In fact most of the words and phrases seemed Spanish in their origin and a number of the players lined up against us would probably not be found on the Juventus roster either.  Kickoff was delayed about 10 minutes as by 8 pm only 5 players clearly on the Juventus squad had assembled.  The remainder of the players came from the park bench and could clearly be described as young, fast, and very good.  Three words used to describe players from a different soccer league.  On this night, they would make us sweat on a balmy hot and humid evening in Alexandria, Virginia.  Gerard, assigned as referred for the evening by Dark Associates, would officiate the match.

Last night marked the first game of the new season which extends from August 4 until the end of November.  As I collected team dues, for the first time in 14 years, I actually thought about the cash in my wallet sitting on the sidelines during the game...a sum which I would never carry around after dark.  Which was, of course,  the case when after the game I shut the field lights off and noticed how utterly alone I was in the dark, back parking lot of an alternative school.  Nevertheless I quick stepped it up to my car and drove home thinking about the game the Orangemen turned in.

First, we scored three goals.  In fact we scored first.  A goal that from a well placed corner kick taken by Jose early in the first half.  After what appeared to be a scrum in the box with the ball being headed toward the goal by Ben and deflected down into the goal box, Dougie was able to curl his foot around the loose ball and sink it into the net.  We would have to wait until the second half for the remainder of the goals all though the remainder of the half was not with tremendous opportunities.  Again and again we broke forward with Jose leading the charge only to miss a handful more times by a few inches.  Late in the first half we picked up another player, Amman, who appears to have noticed what colors we were wearing, went home and found a orange jersey, and showed up standing on the sidelines and seamlessly rolled onto the field during one of our substitutions.  Luckily, he was a good player so at half-time I welcomed him back for the second 45 minutes,  not that he was planning on sitting the bench anyway.

 Ironically it was not until Juventus earned a red card and one of their players was removed from the pitch by Gerard for a very cynical kick at John that they actually started to play better, and scored their first goal.  That was followed by two more before the end of the half.

Coming out the second half, Juventus was ready to score.  They were able to score two more in the first ten minutes clearly putting the game out of reach for us.  It’s not clear whether we just came out flat or the goals they scored were just good, but they didn’t seemed troubled much by the opportunities when they were presented.  I’m voting for flat.

Not without heart the Orangemen pushed back.  We pressured and pressured and our second breakthrough came as a direct result of this pressure.  Sam, who was playing a bit higher up the field as a halfback, rather than in his beloved left full, back position, charged their keeper who was holding the ball looking to distribute the ball to his right back.  Miscalculating Sam’s speed and cat like reflexes, the keeper put the ball on the ground and Sam pounced with his left foot.  He hooked the ball over the keepers shoulder and into the side netting of the far goal post.  He celebrated by releasing a huge scream as he ran the length of the field to prepare for kickoff.

 Our third goal emerged also as a result of pressure, this time by the Mooch himself.  He took on a Spanish speaking version of the Juve regular Marco Motta pressuring him back into his own penalty area.  Beating him on the inside with a deftly placed ball he raced around Motta on the outside hoping to get the cross in.  He beat Motta to the ball getting ready for a shoulder charge.  When he hit Motta shoulder to shoulder on the endline, just as his laces connected to the ball, he was knocked clean off his feet and was left laying in the dirt as the ball bounced free and still in play in the box.  Amman was able to run onto the ball and placed a strike on goal in the penalty area.  The ball hit a defender's hand and Gerald signaled for the penalty kick.  Gooch, recognizing that Mooch had been knocked ass over tea kettle signed for a substitution, which would have to wait until after the PK was taken.  Ben stepped up to take the kick and easily beat the keeper slotting the ball into the right side netting.

Final observations about the match.  We would have faired significantly better had Jose been on this evening...with several strikes missing by inches.  Shots he has made countless times on other evenings.  Bob pressured the ball relentlessly up top, in fact most of our team was stepping to the ball to place initial pressure on Juve so they would have to begin their passing immediately.  Mikey played his last game at stopper for the year as he returns to college next weekend, just when I was thinking about using his speed in midfield again, along one of our flanks.  Ben returned after a few weeks absence to put on a clinic for Juve and for us on how to properly contain the man you are marking, and win the ball, without over committing or diving in thus losing the containment.  John who seems fully recovered from broken or bruised ribs was nonetheless complaining of a tweak in his groin.  Perhaps his speed was off a step due to his groin tweak but you couldn’t tell it as he raced down countless players to get himself between the goal and the ball.  Kurt, playing primarily on the left this game, raced forward on multiple attacks, and got the cross in on several occasions,  his last cross was exquisitely place and almost resulted in a late goal.  Nate, Gallucci, and Ann were also putting great pressure on the ball, from whatever position they were asked to play.  For Ann, the work she is doing in the gym with her personally trainer is paying off in terms of game fitness.  For Gooch, laying off that extra helping of pasta during the week seems to have paid off as well.  Nate is fast and with his long legs able to disrupt more than a few attacks.  As always Gene put in a good evenings work in the net and the goals that were scored were well out of his reach.  His distributions really improved last night.

We played well Orangemen...the score may not reflect it, but we had plenty of chances and on another evening perhaps without all the Juve ringers the outcome would be different.  After the match the Juve manager, Milton, apologized to me for the ringers saying they wouldn’t have fielded a team without the help.  I’m OK with that, and we did pick up Amman ourselves.  I would rather play with any players available as long as someone is there keeping the Peace.  And thanks again to Gerad the ref for keeping that peace.