Yassin scores four as autumn football attracts legion of players

The setting could have not been more autumnal: leaves ? ? suspended between the trees and the grass, the air brisk but not unwelcoming, the grass ever inviting, the players eager to make the fans proud: 28 of them turned up, updating the record book. Kids Charlie and Lorenzo joined after a while and the memory goes back to some 15 plus years ago with their Dads Adrian and Alessandro, now FDs Ambassadors respectively in Guernsey and Hong Kong.

There is simply no other such global successful franchise that relies only on word of mouth and the work of its members without spending a penny in marketing and advertising. ‘Let the people come to me’ is rather the spirit. Our attractive football does indeed attract players: in fact today we had two rookies, Al and Javier, bringing respectively Libya and Ecuador as the 58th and 59th nations. A welcome addition after so many months of restrictions.

With 28 players it seemed obvious to do a 14 a side but after many rounds of challenging maths the end result was 15 v 13. Who said mathematics is not an opinion? Yet the game proved to be quite balanced also because the two guardians, Tony and Alessandro, were ever vigilant as well as defences.

Problem is that you can be as vigilant as you want but when you face a player like Yassin the normal procedures applied to football turn into a mix of bullshit and wishful thinking. No one was surprised when he opened the score but the ‘Colours’ had a vibrant reaction and levelled soon after with a shot from Julien. He is a midfield fighter with a licence to score, a sort of Patrick Vieira in his prime.

The ‘Orange’ had to start again and again with Yassin who produced a mazy run interrupted only by Alessandro who mowed him down when he was applying the final touch. As no one wanted to take the penalty Giancarlo stepped up to do its duty but Alessandro, who tattooed on his arms all the penalty stats of the opponents, guessed the right side and saved proving that homework always pays.

While we all admire Giancarlo’s courage for taking the penalty after missing two consecutive ones, someone should perhaps convince him to give up not to stain an otherwise impeccable career. Yet the player can still be useful: taking advantage of the fact that Yassin at times was surrounded by up to eight players, Giancarlo took a ball on the right side and put in the box a poisonous cross that Lorenzo had no other option than convert in his own goal. A rare mistake in an otherwise confident and mature performance by the young center back against world class strikers that make or break careers.

After that it was a full Yassin show with an unmitigated display of skills, speed, power and tricks that led him to score four, squeezing out 80% of the ‘Orange’ juice output, that is four goals out of five.Unconfirmed reports in the after match
claim that Yassin was contacted by ‘Jaffa’ reps to be the face of the new marketing campaign for the orange company (not to mention the avances from the Dutch National team, desperate to sign him up).

Yassin’s goal series was interrupted by a fine goal by rookie Javier sealing an excellent debut with an all round performance. Zac also added one and on the 5-3 for the ‘Orange’ the golden goal was called, scored once more by Johannes who allowed the ‘Colours’ to end on a positive note an otherwise fierce and intense match.

Had not been Yassin been on the pitch the Man of the Match award would have been given to the second placed, Christian, who had a fantastic game, defending superbly both as a right and center back and being a constant threat in attack also thanks to his aerial prowess. When interviewed at the end of the Match he said ‘ had I had in school and business teachers like Hannes, Hossam and Massimo on the pitch I would be up there with Jeff and Elon’. Difficult to argue against such logic.

As for the MOTM himself, funnily enough Yassin accepted the trophy with some reservation. ‘My little daughter asked me if instead of bringing home so many cups I could swap them with dolls?!’ The Club has called an EGM to give the matter its utmost consideration.

The day ended with an update from the Club’s Treasures on the positive results on the ongoing funding. So far the Club has already received 22 donations for a total of £1,350. “We are humbled by the generosity of our members” said an official statement, “and we hope to receive even more funds, as we have many projects in the pipeline. There is no limit to what we can do to benefit our players and our fans. After all, UEFA rules on financial fair play don’t apply to us”

ORANGE v COLOURS 5-4

GOALS:
ORANGE: Yassin (4), Lorenzo (og)
COLOURS: Julien, Javier, Zac, Johannes

TEAMS:
ORANGE: Tony L, Al, Arman, Hannes, Massimo, Chetan, Charlie, Chakir, Yassin, Paride, Tom, Mohammed, Giancarlo.
COLOURS: Alessandro, Christian, Filippo, Andre’, Hossam, Lorenzo, Victor, Zac, Ben, Julien, Johannes, Javier, Francesco, Thomas, Jeremy