A fitting pitch. Hungary ?? brings the 61st Nation
For the first time since being used by FDs the pitch looked like a football pitch. It had been sort of levelled and combed with the holes filled so that the soil brought by Thomas today in generous quantity was an extra boon and provided an arena finally fit for the roaring lions.
But how comes then? Have Royal Parks finally realised that they would kiss good bye to all of their assets should a FD get injured because of the bad pitch and sue them? Or rather has the park warden who was handed the season ticket last week bragged about it with his colleagues so that they are competing to get new ones by improving the facilities?
Whichever the answer the stage today was set for a performance where the pitch invited skills rather than deter them. The finest feet on the planet where in for a treat.
The day was also graced by the presence of Louis, a rookie who brought Hungary as the 61st Nation and sealed the match in style.
The Orange were rationally covering the pitch: Francesco operated as a ‘Falso Nueve’ feeding the wingers while Yassin was on a self-feeding mode as usual. Defense was a deadly mix of metal (Hannes) and youth ( Charlie and Lorenzo) with Ben and Christian linking the departments and having themselves a go at goal.
Though the Orange line up looked intimidating, the Colours found inner strength and believe as the match progressed. Johannes provided perpetual motion tiring opposition already in the early part of the game.
Both keepers were in superb form anchoring the score to a 0-0 until Marco found the key to unlock the fortress with a devious shot outside the box. From then on the game was tactically a different one: The Orange raged into the Colours’ half leaving plenty of space for the raids by Julien, Marco and Johannes who scored a brace apiece.
On the opposite front It was impossible to restore parity but dignity was saved by Yassin who produced a hat trick and was denied a fourth by a miraculous double save by Tony L. Alessandro was also instrumental in keeping the score within distance denying Giancarlo three times and few more his mates.
Thomas reminded fans of his poacher’s skills and settled the score at 7-4 giving his team hope for the golden goal. But today Colours were in no mood of leaving anything up for grab and it was Rookie Louis to score on his debut the golden goal that left Orange empty handed while Colours celebrated till late with the ecstatic fans.
There was no shortage of candidates for the Man of the Match: the two hat-trick boys, Johannes and Yassin, Marco, the two keepers, Alessandro and Tony L but voters had a chance to reward one of the unsung hero, Julien, and they did so unreservedly. He played like a Kante in midfield and scored like a Lampard when provided the opportunity. The fans coming from France felt the trip was worth every penny and decided to prolong their stay until next Saturday longing for another treat.
COLOURS-ORANGE 8-4
GOALS
COLOURS: Johannes (3), Marco (2), Julien (2), Louis.
ORANGE: Yassin (3), Thomas
TEAMS:
COLOURS: Tony, L, Andre’, Diego,
Julien, Al, Johannes, Louis, Giancarlo, Marco, Yuv (from 75′)
ORANGE: Alessandro, Hannes, Stanley Charlie, Ben, Lorenzo, Christian, Yassin, Jeremy T, Francesco, Thomas.