A tale of two Rookies
It was again a full house as the crowd migrated in an orderly fashion from the Pond pitch to the Palace one as they usually do during half term games taking advantage of their valuable fully fungible multipurpose season tickets: with them holders can gather a ‘no questions asked’ access to ‘Annabel’s’ or walk straight into the Wimbledon final, just to mention a couple of options, among many.
The 18 players had to contend with a wet pitch, at times muddy though unable to impede the fluidity of the game. Traffic was diverted from the center to the flanks where the running with the ball was smoother and allowed clean crosses for the finalisation of the forwards.
There were new faces too: Jonathan from Frankfurt made his debut patrolling the right wing, initially as a full back then increasingly as an attacking winger providing assists and also having a go at goal. Paride, credit to him, has found yet again another valuable recruit providing new blood.
We also had a second tentative rookie, Joe from San Francisco. He watched the game for a while from the elevated side and then decided to join. Few minutes after he vanished. The official version is that he didn’t have proper shoes and found it easier to withdraw.
Later in the pub he actually confided to his pals that the intensity, brutality, speed, ruthlessness on one side and the skills, finesse, art of passing, tactical awareness on the other were such that, despite him playing at top level in San Francisco, he had no option but step out as quickly as possible to avoid an early embarrassment growing slowly but surely into a shameful performance. No doubt this event will raise questions about future admissions and the need to reinstate the six months ‘Navy Seals’ probation period we all have been successfully through.
As Man City always starts every game one up in the certainty that Haaland will sooner or later score at least one, the same applies to the team Daoud is playing with. Specifically the Colours soon found out the theory just infallible when the man broke the deadlock of a tense and balanced game with an opportunistic goal.
Colours were playing with an aggressive 2-4-3 and their formidable three pronged attack made by Daoud, Francesco and Nizard could have hurt any defence. Besides, in terms of supplies the three ‘punteros’ were spoilt for choice with Johannes, Giancarlo and Diego providing pinpointed, penetrating passes.
While singing the praises of the Colours no expert commentator would have made the mistake to overlook the mix of potential and gravitas of the Orange team. In case they did they were soon reminded of that when Adam, a young Musiala in the making, started dribbling from the left side inward to position the ball for a deadly right footed shot who end its course in the back of the net beating Alessandro, until then simply unbeatable.
There were in between some unusual mistakes by proven implacable strikers defying few laws of physics, like when Victor sent the ball over the bar from almost the goal line. He then decided to punish himself with a week skiing in the Swiss Alps… That would have gone down as the miss of the season but you had to wait only few minutes to question it when Francesco did the same on a shot by Johannes which could have arguably hit the net.
Anyway it was game on with the Colours in need of a fresh restart. A fast and hard retaliation was required from the Colours heavyweights (any reference to the size of the players should be solely regarded as malicious): at the time of asking the reaction was exactly what the doctor ordered. Nizard rose yet again to the occasion and scored a critical brace to which Daoud added another one.
At 4-1 the clock was ticking against the indomitable Orange side to whom the golden goal looked like the only realistic chance to salvage a grim Saturday morning. Yassin took destiny in his feet and went on to restore pride and cheers among the fan by scoring the final goal of the day and prove that, despite one man down for most of the match, the put up a show worth every penny.
For the Man of the Match it would be quicker to name those that didn’t deserve it such was the widely impressive contribution to a scintillating game by virtually every player. The two keepers kept their teams in the game single handedly. Yassin and Johannes were the incessant engines in any part and time of the game: ironically by doing that they only increased the weight of expectation by raising the bar at every game. Adam was always on the run unchaining himself from opposition while Diego provided fine passing to unlock the Orange defence.
BUT it was Bijan who sent the crowd wild (the ‘Bijan marry me’ shirt price is just going one way) each time he took the ball and made its own property turning the left lane a ‘no trespass’ zone. Destroying opposition and creating counters was what he did incessantly with timing and force.It is not every Saturday that a full back wind the MOTM award but there was none arguing with that this time.
COLOURS-ORANGE 4-2
GOALS
COLOURS: Daoud (2), Nizard (2)
ORANGE: Adam, Yassin
TEAMS
COLOURS: Alessandro, Bijan, Al, Jonathan, Johannes, Giancarlo, Diego, Daoud, Nizard, Francesco.
ORANGE: Paride, Hossam, Adam, Joe, Julien, Andrea M, Yassin, Mohammad, Ali, Victor.