Someone likes it cold, ice cold
‘Hic sunt Leones’. The writings were on the ground, the frosty ground (see pic) supposedly by some fans who slept in the park to get the best seats the morning after.
And indeed 16 lions turned up undisturbed by the icy pitch and subzero temperature to stage a show which warmed the hearts of the lovers of the beautiful game.
Hannes outdid AI and Algos in putting together two formidable teams who fought to the very end for supremacy in a game a lot more balanced than the final score suggests. Having also a role keeper each made the scoring more difficult and strikers had to put in the extra effort.
Today the usually generous acrobatics like diving headers, sliding tackles and overhead kicks were shelved as falling on the ground would have produced the same bouncing factor than if you fell on concrete. While the white frost disappeared progressively with the running and kicking of the ball, the pitch remained very hard and slippery impacting speed and balance: it was probably the one match where the 20 mph speed limit was observed by virtually every footballer.
Two Rookies braved the temperature to join the battle: Roberto from Naples, a friend of Andrea M, who started well but was then restrained by an injury. He nevertheless set a new record as soon as he hit the ground as being at 65 the oldest serving Football Dad replacing Giancarlo. While traditional Football teams try desperately to lower the average age, FDs have made an art of out winning thanks to experience and maturity offering their players multi-decade contracts.
The second Rookie was Dhanush from Madras, a friend of Ishan, bringing much needed fresh blood in defence. As if humans were not enough also a dog was ready to step in. And a fairly opinionated one as he turned up already wearing the Orange bib (see pic) but he should have know better…
Few minutes into the game everyone wondered what Alex had for breakfast: just wearing flat sole shoes he was already on a hat trick running riots among the Orange defence who had no less than Hannes and Massimo directing it with Johannes and Julien ruling midfield.
The Colours deployed a winning formula: no static striker, Andrea M holding the ball on the right flank and feeding in turn the incursions of the likes of Alex, Anton and Bijian who were everywhere on the pitch.
A start like that would have killed any opposition but the Orange knew deep down that the toughest the enemy the bigger the glory. A brace each by Ishan and Giancarlo brought the game back in contention but also had the side effect of igniting Anton who from then now took it where Alex left it scoring a bundle.
There were amazing goals like Anton superb header from corner kick, Ishan as well concluding a core scheme and Dario curling in shot a-la-Dibala. Not to talk about almost goals like when Giancarlo shaved the bar with a bullet header.
Both keepers were on red alert and earned their salary by saving many more despite the ground not inviting dives. It was only towards the last few minutes that Colours put the score behind reach at 8-6 and went on to seal the day with a golden goal by Thomas making sure that a shot by Anton ended in the bottom of the net.
By the end of the game everyone was hot and Hannes regretted he didn’t wear his customary short-sleeved who cares about the weather Arsenal shirt. Perhaps he’ll make it up by wearing a vest next time.
The Man of the match was a close call between Anton and Alex but the quality of Anton’s goals were such that he ended up bringing home the coveted trophy.
COLOURS-ORANGE 9-6
GOALS
COLOURS: Alex (3), Anton (4), Andrea M, Thomas
ORANGE: Ishan (2), Giancarlo (2), Dario (2)
TEAMS
COLOURS: Paride, Thomas, Julien, Dhanush, Bijan, Alex, Anton, Andrea M
ORANGE: Alessandro, Massimo, Roberto, Hannes, Ishan, Johannes, Dario, Giancarlo
