Game 1, Winter Tournament Vs. Skyline FC
An excellent way to start the season!
Player of the match: It was a joint effort, so I will not give it to anyone this game.
Goal scorer(s): Juan, Dylan, Jack
Funny of the game: Skyline FC was VERY floppy! One dude hurt his knee when he smashed into Dylan and DYLAN was called for fouling someone.
Coach said at the start, "This first game is the most important one, because if you lose it at the end of the tournament, you may be relying on another team to lose to advance the round. This game is very important.”
1st Half
No one on our team recognized the team we played. The game began with a few nice passes around the field. We slowly moved the ball up into enemy territory, and had a few shots on goal. Dylan made a beautiful cross into the 18', but sadly it was slightly too far from Amir, the striker. We had many counter-attacks, starting with me passing up to Ian, then Noah was there to take the ball and cross to the middle. We had many of these types of plays during the game. We had many oppurtunities and we almost scored twice. We scored near the begininng after a nice cross by Juan! Then they returned our shots with a few runs, to tie the game up 1-1. Amir had a few nice moves that would keep us out of playing defense for a while, a couple balls by Kai in the corner were played in, and we scored again! Things were looking good, when suddenly #4 ran up the field and almost scored, but I barely blocked it. Asher played a beautiful game, with about 9 blocks from great shots! When he punted it up, Amir scored with a little flick in to end the half 2-1!
At halftime, coach said, “Lets play weird. Right? Fake them out, juke them, whatever you must do to have fun.” The whole time we were distracted by a bee that seemed interested in coach Calum’s talk.
2nd Half
The second half was much like the first. Jacob had many nice plays against their striker, and we passed the ball pretty well. Asher had a great game, with about 10 saves and a few assists. One of which was a punt downfield to Juan who got it up to Jack. Jack crossed it, but soon got it back after a little confusion. He shot, AND SCORED! Now we had the, “Cushion”, as coach calls it. We played high and a few close calls happpened on offense, but the defense was like a wall. No one could get past it. We kept this wall the whole game except one oddity where they passed the ball in behind us and the referees didn’t call it offsides. Afterwards I asked the ref what was the call and who was behind him and he said he didn’t know. The game ended with only one close call, and we won
3-1 Surf WINS!
What a good way to start the season! Thanks for reading,
Simon
Coach Calum’s note
Game one we played Skyline. We were the better team in this game and we were able to take control of the game early. The thing that impressed me the most with today’s performance was we didn't have to go all the way through the gears. We were comfortable in the game. We were able to control the territory on the pitch and we won the first and second balls. I felt we could have scored whenever we needed in this game. We gained a comfortable build out phase although I would have liked us to retain the ball more instead of countering and playing the transitions. I can't ask for more in a tournament than winning the first game.