Muddy warriors
The miserable weather did not deter 18 players from leaving the warmth of their houses to engage in the arena with nothing on offer but blood (ask Thomas), toil, tears and sweat, all covered in mud.
Victor could not believe he left Rio and its 35 degrees to meet up with rain and wind but he knew full well that he had to respond to the call of duty. And respond he did with a majestic display resorting to all the tools in his magic box which for a Brazilian is bigger than average.
Comfort is not what moulds warriors: formalities were kept to a minimum and the noise of the clashes did the most of the talking as soon as the ball started rolling. Since the end of the World Cup we had not had any Moroccan player turning up: today the crowd erupted in sheer jubilation when Tissir and Mohammad were spotted from the distance. Morocco performance has not gone unnoticed. A football force to be reckoned with and a string of outstanding players. Something we knew already. Luca was also back at the centre of defence liaising with Hannes to keep Orange strikers under control.
Both teams played, as they had done for a while, a very vertical game taking as little time and space as possible to put one of their strikers in front of goal. Some fine commentators pointed out that the Qatar World Cup has officially sealed the end of titi-kaka or lateral playing as boring and ineffective. What they forgot to add is that it had happened already well before the World Cup in Kensington gardens.
Again today all the three role keepers were missing: the CLUB might well respond with heavy fines in case of unjustified absences and injuries qualify as such. Rush keepers are not the answer but just the emergency: today Giancarlo in his three spells in goal conceded four goals out of four shots…
The Colours started on the front foot and made the most of their lethal front line with Victor scoring a few and Johannes adding a beauty with a long distance shot which cut the air like a bullet to end its trajectory into the bottom corner. No one could do anything but to watch it.
Orange somehow countered with goals from Francesco, Giacomo and Khaled: the latter showed his full range of skill to score a brace and reduce the gap to only two goals. It was then that the Moroccan spirit came out with Tissir and Mohammad to put the game out of contention after 115’ of fierce battling.
There remained only the golden goal for the Orange to stand in front of their wet fans with the chin up: and grab the did the opportunity! A loose ball was travelling in midfield: Massimo protected it so it could run its course and on the bounce he hit it with the full, unrestrained power of his explosive left foot. The keeper wisely didn’t put a hand to it otherwise he would be in a&e at Westminster hospital. A shot that a Roberto Carlos in top form could have come close to emulate. The Orange pride was restored and both set of fans were then seen sharing umbrellas and comments on another nail biting game.
Victor was voted Man of the March as his early goals turned out to be decisive, as well as for braving the elements surviving in style a 30 degrees gap from Brazil to London. Getting tanned is nice but writing pages of Football history available to future generations is a better way to spend the time
Giancarlo Castelli
COLOURS-ORANGE 7-5
COLOURS: Hannes, Thomas, Luca, Julien, Johannes, Victor, Tissir, Al, Mohammad
ORANGE: Hossam, Massimo, Chetan,
Sara, Giancarlo, Khaled, Romeo, Francesco, Giacomo
GOALS:
COLOURS: Victor (3), Tissir (2), Johannes, Mohammad
ORANGE: Khaled (2), Giacomo, Francesco, Massimo