0-2 Loss vs. Teal Dweebs
June 22nd, 2003
Brian:
Our first meeting with the Dweebs this year. As always,
the Dweebs put up a good fight. They have plenty of talent,
and a few speedy people to slow down our offense.
It would be wrong to not start with mention of the fact
that Ramsey was there to play. Some wondered about this
on Saturday night at the huge party at Casa Henry. Ramsey
claimed to be feeling "not good" while Christian proudly
proclaimed that he was "not hung over at all." Heather could
not be reached for comment.
We had no woman subs and two guy subs. 1:45 game slot, but
not quite as hot as usual. The game got of to a quick start - DiCarlo
(who was first to the field) made a strike in from the left side and
beat the goalie on the short side. However the Dweebs pointed to the
small hole in the side of the net and claimed that it went through.
The ref, who clearly didn't have a clue didn't even react. Enough talk
from the Dweebs and he ruled it not a goal.
The mid-wing tandems of Erin/Marie and Heather/Amy were working the
ball up well, easily beating their women consistently. Some nice
crosses led to a few opportunities. However, their sweeper took away
a lot of better opportunities. We missed on a lot of crosses and
a few corners, and were unable to score in the first half. However,
at the other end, our defense was strong. Bea covered their center
forward relentlessly, and they only got a couple of shots on Clark
in the first half.
The second half started slow. Our efforts to pass the ball slowly
up the field cost us early. A couple of mistakes
left them open for an easy goal. We didn't quite bounce back from that
either, and a mistake or two more let them score another fairly easy
goal. After that, we tightened it up considerably, and I don't
think they really had another decent shot all game.
Unfortunate that they capitalized on only a few defensive mistakes,
and the end result was far more due to lack of offense than anything.
What else to say. We had so many good opportunities on offense, but
were unable to convert. I'm sorry Jeff, Marie that I don't remember
your efforts in detail, but any missed opportunities pale in comparison
to Brian's new record for a bad header. On the perfect cross from
Marie that
cleared the goalie, I managed to head the ball off the ground and
over the goal from four feet out.
A bit of opinion, for what it's worth. We weren't moving that
much on offense. When Jeff goes in on runs, the rest of our team
tends to stop, rather than follow him. A lot of balls come out to the
18 after these rushes, and we're not there for them. Other thing is
that if we're going to work the ball up the field more slowly, then
we need midfield AND forwards to get back further first, as well as
making quicker passes.
Frustrations continued for us, and there probably isn't much more
to say. I sincerely apologize to our fans for not-so-politely
asking them to not tell me to shoot.
Overall, we found it disappointing to play so hard and
just not produce offensively. However, this is the summer league,
and teams are better. Hopefully the challenge is a nice change from
the Spring. On the plus side, we managed to not complain to refs
despite quite a few missed foul calls on their defense.
Mike:
Okay, am I the only one that thinks some gypsy cast a curse on us? Seems like we can't buy a goal out there to save our lives this week. Heck, even
when we do score, we have some ref with a small-man complex calling back the goal because he's trying to make time with the other team's women (hmmm,
I'm not bitter at all am I?) I just want ro re-iterate that even though we lost, I thought we played really well. Sure, we had a couple defensive
let downs, but by my count they only had 3 good scoring opportunities the whole game, they just got lucky enough to score on two of them. We played a
lot of great D otherwise, we played a lot of great offense too. Lots of crosses, shots, headers etc. Lots of passing through the midfield as well, I
think maybe some of our best passing of the season. And heck, with the exception of that little prick #20, Dweebs are always a bunch of nice guys
(and girls). Never mind that the ref should have awarded DiCarlo a penalty shot (and probably given their defender a red card) after he was hacked
down on a partial breakaway in the middle of the 18 yard box. Let's just put these two games behind us, and not get focussed on the scoring. That
will come if we don't let it get into our heads.
Scoring:
- None :-(
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