Diego F steals the show as Platinum Goal makes a debut
This time the Team selection turned out to be supremely balanced as Hannes took full advantage of his chance to redeem himself. The keepers, Paride and Alessandro, were paid double wage to turn up and answered with no hesitation the call of duty to provide stability and excellence in goal. Not surprisingly, the final score was half the goals you get in a game with rush keepers.
Yassin and Johannes captained the opposite teams as the golden rule to never play them together was consensually restored.
All the ingredients for a ‘do or die’ match were put in: whichever way you stirred you were guaranteed from the start to get the ultimate tasty product. The jubilant crowd knew there were in for a treat, one for which there is no substitute.
Yassin right from the start made it clear that the rule of G.O.A.T was to be applied for the match by coast to coasting the pitch at will and scoring a brace during the exercise. But today he had to contend on the other side with a ‘nomen omen’.
Anyone by the name of Diego knows that when it comes to football he has a big legacy to carry. In fact the CLUB has three and each of them is living up up to the hype: Diego A, now in Madrid and chased by both Atletico and Real, Diego D the young Haaland clone and Diego F who plays exactly in the same position as Diego Armando Maradona. Besides, our Diego F is from around Naples where Maradona was the undisputed king on and off the pitch from 1984 to 1992.
Today Diego F, with the backing of Johannes in midfield, was able to play in a more advanced position as attacking midfielder and it showed when either creating himself or given a chance to score: his conversion rate was 100%, including a toe poke just inside the penalty box and, most difficult, a penalty which with existing goals and keepers is statistically very rare to score.
Diego’s tally for the day was four goals. An impressive feat that allowed the Oranges to arrive at the golden goal marginally ahead at 4-3.
The match remained remarkably balanced despite an unbalancing factor: at around half time Yuv returned to play after a long. Given his proven ability to turn games quickly he was employed at different times with both sides until he joined the Orange for good as Julien had to leave.
There was also a new Rookie in the person of Bartolomeo, a young Italian strengthening the Foglia contingent. He formed with Ishan a good attacking pair showing a fast understanding and keeping the Colours’ defence on constant alert.
The golden goal was among the fastest to be achieved as Francesco punished a lapse in concentration by the Orange defence sealing the game at 4-4.
At this stage something remarkable happened: fans, instead of orderly heading towards the exit after the celebrations, started stamping on the stands and shouting ‘We want more!”‘. It was then decided, not least for safety reasons, that an unprecedented Platinum Goal would be added on.
The honour to wrap it up fell on Giacomo who completed his daily brace with a surgical shot settling the final score at 5-4 for the Colours.
Incidentally it was noticed that a growing influx of students from US is gracing our games. I’m not one for conspiracy theories but few questions need to be answered: is US trying to learn the trade from us ahead of the local World Cup? In such case shall we introduce tariffs or caps? Given the sensitive nature of the subject this is something that ought to be put in front of the board for discussion.
The Man of the Match award was naturally won by a landslide by Diego F carrying the hat-trick ball with one hand and the trophy with the others.
Finally, after the Bibs protocol another housekeeping point aimed at making our game as fluent as ever. We turned down VAR as taking away the fast and furious element to our game and we owe it to our fans to find solutions for any bottleneck. One of which is that we waste too much time to debate handballs.
For example today a penalty was awarded for handball. As the act was not voluntary and the hand touching the ball was aligned with the body, Colours argued it was no penalty. Orange instead countered that the trajectory of the ball was deviated at their disadvantage hence it was a penalty. Which it was.
So from now on the rule is: If the handball is with an open arm (or away from body), OR the handball is voluntary, OR the ball trajectory changes to the disadvantage of the offending player , then is a foul. If instead the hand is close to body, the handball is not voluntary and there is no change of trajectory then is NOT a foul.
I have no idea what FIFA rules are but as always is up to them to conform to us.
COLOURS-ORANGE 5-4
GOALS
COLOURS: Yassin (2), Giacomo (2), Francesco
ORANGE: Diego F (4)
TEAMS
COLOURS: Alessandro, Federico F, Andrea M, Bijan, Yassin, Ivory, Francesco, Giacomo, Yuv
ORANGE: Paride, Hannes, Julien, Giancarlo, Johannes, DiegoF, Ishan, Bartolomeo, (Yuv)