The glorious remuntada which just failed the golden (goal) test
Adam Smith contended that the wealth of Nations depends on the specialisation of roles and in football one of the most important is surely goalkeeper. Without them (Alessandro, Paride, Tony L where are you?) it is almost inevitable that you are going to see plenty of goals and today was no exception. In fairness they could have been even more had not the rushing keepers, especially the Orange ones, performed some serial saves the professional guardians would have been proud of.
The pitch was as green as wet and letting the long balls bounce was a guarantee to lose them.
The 15 players knew that full well and exhibited an exemplary aerial control of the ball with led to downpour applause from the stands: incidentally that served the purpose to warm their hands up in a chilly and humid morning.
Yet not a single fan opted for the warmth of his house instead of his cold but adrenaline-filled seat on the stand. And the thrill of the match fully justified the choice.
The Orange immediately made a virtue of being one man down by occupying
the territory in an effective way letting the ball do the talking with the 14 educated feet directing the play, hardly wasting a pass. Defence was very tight with the return of Branko after a long absence. The Moroccan double act Yassin-Mohammad always have the key to unlock any defence and today was no exception. Mohammad has turned into the last few games into a machine gun with free flowing ammunitions.
Their one-two-three-four with the addition of Bijan would have floored any opposition but the Colours had in their ranks the young Musiala, aka Adam, who can turn games single footedly.
As Nizard was today playing more backward the burden of bridging the gap for the Colours’ fell on Adam’s shoulders: he did not shy away from it.
His hat trick kept the Oranges in the game and even with a three goals gap no one would have bet against them.
At one point with a wet and bumpy pitch Adam dared defiantly a rainbow 🌈 flick on the run as beautiful as effective to get rid of two opponents in one shot.
It was one of those game were everyone, unconsciously yet perversely also the opposition, wanted it to drag to the golden goal as you cannot get tired of beauty.
Colours, who had to blame themselves for the many chances missed, dug deep and found with Nizard and the two Diegos the net to take the game to the golden goal.
When the going get tough the tough get going and the Orange had the man for every season in their rank as Yassin yet again wrapped up the game with the umpteenth golden goal.
In a game like this there were naturally many claimants for the Man of the Match coveted trophy : Mohammad, Yassin and Adam above all but somehow voters might have thought there will be many other occasions to pick them.
Instead they went nostalgic and typed the name Branko in their FDs voting app to reward a rare yet outstanding all round performance: when in goal Branko made many impressive saves, in defence won every single tackle and in the rare occasions he moved forward he scored from a distance and provided an assist Another Football Dad still far and away from hitting sunset boulevard.
COLOURS-ORANGE 8-7
GOALS
COLOURS: Mohammad (4),Yassin (2) Bijan, Branko
ORANGE: Adam (3), Nizard (2),Diego D, Diego F,
TEAMS
COLOURS: Hossam, Branko, Bijan, Sara, Giancarlo, Yassin, Mohammad
ORANGE: Hannes, Thomas, Adam, Andrea P, Julien, Diego F, Diego D, Nizard