An unbalanced game with a punchy finale
You could smell the freshly cut grass from Hammersmith. The pitch was in almost perfect conditions. The “almost” disappeared when our CGO (Chief Gardening Officer) Thomas applied the final touch to the turf as shown in the picture.
The game was decided the moment the formations were made: when the speaker announced that Yassin and Johannes were playing together in the Orange squad the betting market froze. Everyone checked how much cash had available and put it all on Orange to win.
The problem was that the move was so one directional that the odds were punitive, hence nobody dared actually placing the bet. Not only the cardinal rule to never play together the two superstars was broken but also a dangerous precedent was set as betting revenues are the oil in the money making football machine.
To add insult to injury the Orange were also given top notch defenders in Hannes, Chetan and Thomas v none for the Colours.
One could have argued that, being the latter full of midfielders and strikers, they could have scored bundles. Well, what actually happened first was that Diego D ruthlessly exposed the improvised Colours’ defence scoring multiples of what Haaland does week in week out, constantly fed by his midfielders mates.
Rotating keepers only made life easier for bombers who pleased the fans with a goal every few minutes. Diego scored the fastest hat trick on record after a dozen minutes fully exploiting Giancarlo’s and his line mates bad day in the office.
The only ray of hope for the Colours came when Oliviero decided he was Alessandro del Piero: from the left he danced his way through the top corner of the big box and unleashed a transversal curling shot which inflated the top right side of the net. Both sides of the fans stood up as one man tributing a lasting ovation. A sure candidate for goal of the year.
Unfortunately this was not enough to trigger a remuntada as the goals gap remained conspicuous.
A reshuffle was needed and Diego D was swapped with Francesco but the young Italian found life less easy against the granitic Orange defence. Yassin and Johannes kept the score growing for the Oranges with both solo and team moves invariably culminating in goals or assists.
Alex, Dario F, Kevin and Diego tried hard to both protect defence and relaunch the counters but today it was not enough . Strikers had to fight in isolation even if Nizar made his presence count by scoring a brace.
At 12-6 for the Orange there was a reasonable expectation that even the golden goal would go the dominant side way. Instead, Francesco tapped in a low cross ending a miserable day for the Colours and giving the Orange fans the perfect start to the their weekend.
Young Diego D with a double hat trick was the inevitable winner for the Man of the Match award though he did not replicate the performance after the swap but perhaps today you would have needed CR7 and Messi playing together to face the Orange counterparts of Yassin and Johannes to make it a balanced game.
The commentator has a duty to also report a nasty episode after the game ended. Giancarlo openly accused Hannes of match fixing. The German replied abruptly: ‘shut up you bloody Italian’ and punched the Italian in the face causing a bleeding nose as the picture clearly shows and which, incidentally, is going to be used as evidence in court.
Force had to be deployed to separate the two belligerents and ultimately they were persuaded to sign the following compromise joint statement: ‘ The match, throughout, was at times a little bit unbalanced but before the initial whistle and after the final one it was remarkably steady’.
Yet this, and rightly so, was not without consequences for Hannes and Giancarlo. The German has been banned for six months from making any selection whatsoever, including menu at restaurante. Giancarlo will have to avoid sticking his bloody nose for the same time in every dispute as it could backfire with punchy arguments.
The case continues.
ORANGE-COLOURS 13-6
GOALS
ORANGE: Diego (6), Johannes (2), Francesco, Yassin (3), Thomas, Cethan
COLOURS: Oliviero, Hossam (og), Nizard (2), Dario, Diego F
TEAMS
ORANGE: Chetan, Thomas, Hannes, Yassin, Johannes, Julien, Andrea M, Diego D (Francesco)
COLOURS: Giancarlo, Alex A, Diego F, Dario, Kevin, Nizard, Oliviero, Francesco (Diego D).