Due to Halloween falling on a Saturday night, and very few folks actually wanting to play, I think I had 1 confirmed, we were able to reschedule the game for Friday night. Strangley it all worked out well...too well in fact. In the end we had too many fields and too many refs show up for the game. And, at the last minute, Cris and Rahbi came out of retirement to augment our side.
It was a nice cool fall night, perfect temperature for soccer. Orangemen wore black and the Internationalze, decked out in their Brazilian National kits, with bright yellow shirts and bright blue shorts, all of a sudden began to resemble minions...coincidence?
At the end of the evening the score was 1 to 1...a tie. It was the best around game we have played in a long time...this is how the side looked.
Rahbi and Dave Nanney starting up top
Cris, Mooch, Q, and George in the midfield augmented by Alfredo
Golden, Ned, Karl, and Maurico providing an almost impenetrable defense, with Steve H showing up to lend a solid hand.
Gene, of course, was in goal.
Internationalze brought their standard solid line-up. They played fast and in control. But we stayed with them. We were able to bring pressure forward and control the ball in their half of the field to allow our defense a reprieve so when they did attack, we shut them down nicely, and didn’t grow tired. Scott could be heard calling for the midfield to return to shore up the defense, and we did. Had we not been willing to play defensively through the midfield, they might have had more breakthroughs. Unfortunately, with so much defensive minded play, we didn’t create enough chances up top. But we certainly created some chances..most, when we passed the ball with composure through the midfield.
Cris would lead off the attack, but gaining control of the ball, making a move to get out of trouble, and then completing a pass. As always, it never works if that initial control then quick distribution does not occur.
Our goal came on a free kick. Rahbi took the kick from outside the box. The ball looped in nicely and the keeper jumped to get his mitts on it. It beat him but hit the crossbar and bounced down, it hit the ground, but big man Q was right in front of the keeper and was able to stop the ball with his body and then finish with ease into the top of the net.
We had to keep the pressure on to keep from losing as Internationale pressed hard in the remaining few minutes to score. We kept our heads and kept the score a tie. We have lost too many times in those last minutes this year. This was a great turn of fortune and something we should strive for in the future.
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