Invaders

August 28, 2007


Our second game, on a weekday, we didn’t expect to have a full 11, but to our surprise, we were 12 on the field. Main thing the players that mattered the most were present.
Romania had two debutants in the line up – Rudy & Agnelo

As usual, we had no proper warm-up (blame it on the weekday, this time)

Line Up:-
Goalkeeper – Lynston
Defense – Salvito, Rupert (Fabio Carvalo…. Its not me, he calls him self that…… but to the best of my knowledge its Fabio Cannavaro), Baptist, Valario
Midfield – Ardilus, Jason, Rudy, Raphael
Strikers – James, Crispin
Subs – Agnelo

Romania FC 0

Bookings
23” Baptist

The Romanians were under pressure from the first minute on, as the center failed to keep any position of the ball. Invaders were passing the ball around, and keeping good position. But our ever dependable defense & our Superman goalkeeper were matching them step to step. Their full attack was coming from our right side, this time valerio marked his flank responsibly & baps controlled him masterly (in my review of game 1, I had criticized baps for not handling his right side defender). But he (vally) can still do much better, he has to charge up and down the flank & show aggression. Lynst did couple of supermen like clearances (came charging from the goal & was in the air while clearing the ball) & some good punches as well. Baptist got a yellow card for a hard tackle, from the resulting free-kick, the Invaders narrowly missed the top pole, but lynst had it covered.
Defense did had some small heart attack moment, wherein sal tried to clear but, deflected his thigh and missed the goal narrowly. Invaders had good shoots some good shoots but defense stood strong.

As for our strikers, as usual, 2-3 good chances were presented to them, but we didn’t even take one shoot on the goal. James had good chances but lacked the finish. I agree he had no support but it wasn’t the same james I saw in our first game, he lacked the killer instinct, looks like his mind was somewhere else. But being a striker, he did come back to help out the defense for the corners.
Rudy was involved in some good moves on top but nothing materialized. Ardilus was no where in the game, Crispin playing on top, didn’t bear any fruits, as the opposition easily dealt with him & he couldn’t provide any support to james. Jason was committing too many fouls, unnecessary fouls resulting loss of possession. There was a funny incidence that took place, Invaders had a free kick, Jason was standing in the wall, lynst is shouting go left…… go left, but he was moving towards the right……. After the free kick, Jason started shouting im was going to the left…. Looks like even he had too many things on his mind.

So the defense fought hard, forwards tried & center, wat center there no center playing for Romania……. The first half went goalless.

In the second half, we changed a bit, jason shifted to defense & sal took his place in the mid, to try and hold the ball. We got a corner in 47th minute, all charged up, leaving behind sal and behind him only baps & vally. From the corner Invaders got the ball, they lobed it over our last defense, leaving their player a free run on the goal. Sal charged behind, almost blocked the charging player, the ball slipped through sal, don’t know what happened to him, he tripped the opposite player on the edge and to everyone’s surprise the referee gave a penalty to the Invaders. Wat the #@$% was sal doing, did he loose his mind, baps & vally covered ground and were just behind to handle the attack. Their striker nicely tucked the penalty in the corner & they went into the lead.
From then on our real attack started, we played 3 back i.e. sal, baps & vally handling the defense, Rupert charged up and was making some good moves. We substituted Ardilus with our second debutant Agnelo. He too got a nice chance on goal as he came in, but shoot wide. In the dying minutes lynst also moved up, right up to the oppositions goal. The crowd we on their feet to see our goalkeeper charge right up, never in the history of MDFA 4th division, goalkeeper would have charged so up, not once but twice…… it was a great sight. This shows determination, willingness and hunger for success, which we all should have appetite for. Lynston is a great inspiration & the team should take some from him.
But we couldn’t score till the final whistle.


Looking Forward:
Lynston rightly said “What we have to do, we have to do on the field, within the 70 minutes, no point in thinking, I should have done that……. I shouldn’t have done that”
So lets get are acts together. We have got the right blend of individual players, now we have to gel as a team.
This loss clearly highlights our weakness, we should learn from it. No point having the same mistakes repeated. Center is a major concern, no movement happens. Lets do some tinkering there. Our defense our performing good, let give them some more responsibilities.