Prince Filippo back where he belongs
Despite the general mood of mourning around the Country, there was much to cheer today on the pitch at Hyde Park.
A great crowd (20 players), new white balls, the recovered posts and the return of Alessandro, back in goal after his impressive debut last week. Not to mention the successful introduction of the first official team’ Whatsapp group chat (which however proved of dubious utility when everyone went by the Pond despite the message saying “meet at the usual place”…)
Still, the highlight of the day was the return to the game of our very own Prince Philip, or Filippo, as it translates in Italian, back on the pitch after a long absence. Sporting his signature Chelsea jacket and his customary royal aplomb, Filippo took his usual place in defence for the Unbibs, delivering an excellent performance despite having to face formidable opponents and a series of gigantic holes on the ground.
Once again, the teams were so well balanced that the result stayed open for a long time. The Bibs were the first to score with Yasin, but the Unbibs got even with Giuseppe. This pattern repeated again, with the result going to 2-2 and then 3-3.
The Unbibs had the occasion to finally get ahead when they got awarded a free kick for a hand ball in a very interesting position. While Francesco prepared with great care the ball for the shot, the Bibs, clearly scared, run an impromptu meeting to decide the best strategy to avoid an almost certain goal. Their decision was to put up a four-men wall with a fifth man lying on the ground (see picture). A good move. While apparently unimpressed by the Bibs’ wall, Francesco was clearly distracted, and his shot ended up just wide.
At that point the match was temporary stopped as two officers from the Royal Parks Police entered the pitch questioning our right to play. The bad cop said we should stop because we were more than six. He didn’t seem to change his mind even after Tony L said we could show an email with authorisation number from the Westminster police. At the point the good cop was heard whispering to his colleague: ‘easy mate, if you ban ‘em we won’t see the match. This is better than Champions League football and it’s free for us!’ The bad cop beamed up as struck by divine intervention and quipped ‘ you guys carry on, I’m sure is going to be fine, we’ll keep an eye anyway.’
As the match entered the final stage, the Unbibs found themselves short of one man, as Chetan had to leave. They continued to attack, aiming for the victory and remaining very dangerous, but they were unlucky and left wide gaps to their opponents. With the extra man the Bibs scored few more goals getting to a comfortable 6-3, before scoring a seventh one as Golden Goal and sealing a well-deserved win.
“I was a bit rusty today” Filippo humbly admitted, with a smile. Still the pundits decided to took him in consideration for the Man of the Match Award, together with top-scorers Yasin, Giancarlo and Thomas. Eventually the award went to Giuseppe, who played a match of rare intensity and precision despite having suffered from a muscle injury for most of the match.
“I will order a few bags of soil for the holes” said Thomas after the match, conscious that it might take a while before we are back to our usual pitch and we should rather fix the current one before anyone gets hurt. It won’t be the first time the Football Dads take up the task of the royal gardeners, you might remember that time when Philipp filled all the holes in the pitch. Great to have such talented German gardeners in the team!
BIBBED-UNBIBBED 7-3
GOALS
BIBBED: Yassin (2), Thomas (2), Giancarlo (2), Julien
UNBIBBED: Giuseppe (2), Diego
TEAMS
BIBBED: Tony L, Hannes, Mo, Tony A, Philipp, Yassin, Sara, Julien, Thomas, Giancarlo
UNBIBBED: Alessandro, Filippo, Andre’, Cethan, Riccardo, Giuseppe, Diego, Andrea, Marco, Francesco.