Bring it on baby!

Today you could have been forgiven for thinking you were in Brazil ??: the pitch provided a luxurious green, the sun ☀️ a bright yellow and the players with their moves and skills made up for the missing samba girls. Will FDs soon outbrand the Notting Hill carnival too? As always the sky is the limit.

The 21 players though did not indulge in fancy football or self-glorification and meant business from the start adapting well to the slippery ground, letting the ball to do the running with surface-proof pinpointed passes defaulted to the best positioned mate. Nothing new but always a pleasure to watch.

The Unbibbed played a savvier football as if they were the team with the one man up and wasted no time to steer the game their way.  Marco, Roberto and Giancarlo scored in rapid succession, not a mean feat with Paride in goal: from then on the Unbibbed never looked back. Defence was rock solid with Filippo at the centre of it: he did not waste a single ball while making sure that none got past him.

Panic was quickly settling in among the Bibbed ranks: they had an extraordinary meeting and appointed McKinsey for a strategic review. The consultants quickly and expensively stated that neither the strategy nor the assets, that is the players, were flawed. They confidently identified the one and only competitive disadvantage in the fact that the Unbibbed were playing in the wrong side of the pitch, thus penalising their highly rated strikers. At the half time side swapping was ordered thus depriving the Unbibbed of the one excuse left. The commentator does not recall a single match where either Yassin or Johannes did not score and naturally they both obliged taking the score spread to a new high. On the opposite front Chris H was credited for the clean sheet thus far denying every single Unbibbed attempt until Diego scored a consolation goal with a superb cross volley.

The goal did not spark a Remuntada as the Bibbed retaliated in no time: Johannes and Marco put up a one-touch duet on the right flank finalised by the young Italian with a soft lob ball under the bar. While it’s finishing has become more clinical, Marco’s hasn’t lost his classy touch: it must be in the genes!

It remains a mystery how a defence with at its centre Hossam and Massimo, finally back from a long absence, could concede so many goals but perhaps the Unbibbed strikers were too hot today for anyone to handle as John Terry, Roy Keane and Paolo Maldini were ready to concede in the after match comments.

With the score at 7-1 against them, the Bibbed, this time without consulting Mc Kinsey, called for the golden goal. They escaped a penalty for a dubious handball in their box (thank you VAR) and went on to score with Federico thus giving their fans a chance for a final cheer after much suffering.

When the McKinsey’s bill hit home, the Bibbed were left with the sore realisation that you should rely on consultants to charge you a lot without necessarily changing much. An insult added to injury for self made players like FDs!

As the votes came in for the Man of the Match the three names topping the list were that of Marco, Filippo and Chris: it was the latter to lay his hands on the trophy by making the 7-2 win flattering to deceive as in fact without his many incredible saves we would have likely commented a match gone to the wire. Besides, Chris’ bionic hand-throwing of the ball will win gold once it becomes an olympic discipline.

BUT the highlight of the week is the birth of Chloe, the 3.88kg new Baby of our FDs star player Tarek. She won’t be able to kick a ball for a few days but the CLUB wasted no time to sign her up as a brand new Football Kid: bring it on, Baby!

Chloe’s every step will be closely watched by Sara who has established herself as a role model among Football Kids with a growing ability to embarrass Football Dads.   As you might know Tarek is from Egypt, raised in US and living in England.  All three countries have declared January 16th a national holiday to celebrate the event!  We were not expecting anything less.

Unbibbed-Bibbed 7-2

Goals:
Unbibbed: Marco (2), Roberto (2), Giancarlo, Yasin, Johannes
Bibbed: Diego, Federico

Teams:
Unbibbed: Chris H, Filippo, Chetan, Julien, Yassin, Giancarlo, Marco, Johannes, Francesco, Roberto
Bibbed: Paride, Thomas, Massimo, Riccardo Hossam, Adam, Ben,Diego, Federico, Sara, Khaled