Adam and Johannes lead Colours to victory while Turkey joins as 73rd Nation. And counting!
Christian makes a long awaited return from Boston
The annoying, persistent rain did not deter the 23 players from performing a fiercely animated match with endless twists and turns. In fairness FDs never had a reputation as fair-weather players. If any the wet pitch allowed amazing, timely sliding tackles who got the plaudits of a roaring, approving audience asking for more.
The day saw the long awaited return of Christian. The key reason for his rare appearance is that his club in Boston, the now famous Framing Ham Indipendiente (in fact very dependent from Christian’s performance), is very reluctant to let him play away for fear of injury. But what they have lately noticed is that, whenever he comes back from a FDs game, Christian plays like he was Messi and Ronaldo in one. Clearly the benefit of the latter outweigh the risk of the former so the Kensington Gardens’ mob might get a chance to see him more often.
Christian was interviewed (video attached) at the end of the match and gave his take on the speculation that Trump wants him to take the American citizenship and lead USA to glory in the next World Cup. This is ‘Premium’ content but you, as a contributor to the game, are allowed to watch it for free.
Christian made an appearance from Boston and showed he hasn’t lost his touch while Branko proves FDs are elegant on and off the pitch!
Importantly, as with last Saturday, Hossam from the side-line videoed the match coordinating a full crew of cameramen to catch the match’s every move and, at times, entertaining the wing players with casual chats.
Without Hannes the teams’ selection was a trickier exercise than usual: for example the central Orange axis usually made by him and Hossam was this time replaced by the unlikely combination of Matej and Giancarlo. To counter that, Orange had a state of the art midfield under the strict command of Gregorio and a young, impressive attack made by Dario, Diego, Juan Paulo (JP) and Omer. On paper that looked like a formidable goal machine. The problem was that the match was played on grass, and a fairly uneven, slippery one where grit and pace could get the better of class and finesse.
Any team starting with Paride as a guardian is supposed to do well. If then you add Massimo in front of him the supposition becomes a fact. Alister, Andre’, Al and Andrea added fluency on the wings while Federico, Johannes and Rookie Kaan were always on the front foot to feed the lethal trident formed by Giacomo, Ross and Adam
who restlessly attacked the Orange goal defended by Alessandro from every available angle. Kaan, other than contributing to Colours’ victory, brings in TURKEY as the 73rd NATIION and allows his mate Giacomo, who introduced him to FDs, to cash in a 100£ Amazon voucher to be spent on FDs memorabilia. A welcome addition after the Nations’ list was stuck at 72 for many months.
Giacomo introduced Kaan to the magic world of FDs and FKs. Kaan in return brought Turkey as the 73rd Nation and debuted with a sound victory. Welcome Kaan!
The game started, for the second consecutive time, as a 11 v 11and saw Orange taking the initiative with confident moves which were either inches away from goal or saved by Paride. While strikers were adjusting their aim, Gregorio decided to take matters in his own feet and twice struck from distance.
The existing balance was unsettled by one late arrival who gave the ‘one man up’ to the Colours who started attacking furiously forcing an own goal by Matej who had till then an excellent game. Soon after Johannes with a superb shot under the bar and Adam with no less than (another) hat trick dramatically changed the course of the match who recorded a 6-2 score for the Colours at the 11.45 mark.
There has never been such a thing or an excuse by any players as being tired after 100’ of muddy, non-stop football as the prospect of the golden goal brings a massive, explosive adrenaline rush that demands the full exploitation of whatever resource is required by the occasion. There is no better reward in the life of an athlete than opening the home door and shouting like a madman: ‘I’ve scored the golden goal’.
The honour, this time and not for the first time, fell on that left foot of Johannes who
placed the ball from a distance in the bottom corner giving the goalkeeper no chance whatsoever.
The 7-2 score for the Colours does not tell the full story of a match which was always in contention and changed owner half way through.
At half time Gregorio seemed on a motorway to get the Man of the Match award having scored a brace and firmly holding the keys of the game. But one of the feature of FDs football is its unpredictability. Adam, who can turn villain to hero and vice versa, anytime, many times in the game was the turning factor with his hat-rick but voters felt compelled to hand the ultimate reward to Johannes both for his hard and quality work in midfield as much as for his brace including the golden goal.
Johannes always makes it by default to the MOTM shortlist but has missed it for quite few weeks. Some critics point out that the departure of Yassin has perversely deprived him of the reason to go the extra mile, a bit like Messi would do without Ronaldo.
But not this time!
COLOURS-ORANGE 7-2
GOALS
COLOURS: Adam (3), Johannes (2), Matej. (og), Ross
ORANGE: Gregorio (2)
TEAMS
COLOURS: Paride, Massimo, Andre’, Al, Andrea, Alister, Federico, Johannes, Kaan, Giacomo, Ross, Adam
ORANGE: Alessandro, Bijan, Matej, Thomas, Giancarlo, Christian, Jonathan R (JR), Dario, Juan Pablo (JP), Omer, Diego