When "two more minutes" last half an hour
Setting up goals on the Palace grass, the ten players were not worried about the young girl that was listening to her music, lying down inside the pitch.
Usually, a polite request (and the occasional selfie) if enough to convince people to move at a safer distance. But this time it wasn’t going to be easy.
A first attempt from Francesco was fruitless, with the girl simply replying she was fine to remain there. Minutes later, JonathanR tried again, only to receive a similar answer, along the line of “I was here before, so I won’t move”. Clearly, she wasn’t aware of the dangers of being so close to the action.
With the goals already in place and the clock ticking, FDs decided to reduce the pitch by respecting an invisible lateral line that would kept the girl just outside the play. Not just that, they had to adjust their play to (try to) avoid hitting the girl.
A further, but more pleasant distraction came moments before kick-off, when a man approached us.
Having left his sons nearby with a Fox group, George could not believe his eyes when he saw us, and asked if he could join our match as the 11th player.
Despite the obvious maths problem, such a request could never be denied. This is how FDs were born and how most of us were recruited over the years.
Nizar was the first to welcome George, remembering how he did exactly the same thing when he first came to play, some 12 years ago or so.
A Ron Howard look-a-like, despite lacking proper boots George had very good debut, scoring one and getting close to a second with one of the best headers ever seen in our matches.
His presence however had the inevitable effect to unbalance what could have been a perfectly fair 5-side game. Counting on the extra-man, and playing downhill, the Colours team had always more attacking options, and scored profusely.
Being one-man down, instead of retreating in defence as Tuchel might have done, the Oranges went ahead and played in a very attacking fashion. Francesco, Marco and Morteza all found the net, but the score remained firmly in favour of the Colours (8-3 or something).
Discussions were held about changing the teams to rebalance the game, but no action was taken. “Two more minutes and I am gone” replied George every time that the issue of disparity was raised. Those two minutes lasted half an hour or so, but eventually he did leave, returning the match to a fair 5-side.
In this second part, the Oranges actually scored more than the Colours and reduced the gap, but it wasn’t enough to invert the result, with the match ending with the Colours prevailing 11-8.
Among the Colours, it was Kaan to shine. A player that is always reliable, he played his no-nonsense football, and directed the game as a seasoned Spanish midfielder (think Rodri), earning a well deserved MOTM award.
And the girl? Oh, she was never hit with the ball, a testament to the precision of FDs play, didn’t move a muscle during the whole match and remained there after we finished. Perhaps she is still there.
COLOURS-ORANGES 11-8
ORANGES
Francesco, Marco, Morteza, Jonathan, Jonathan
COLOURS
Johannes, Victor, AndreaM, Nizar, Kaan, George