League Champs

This past Sunday my outdoor co-ed team (raiders) played my former team (dunkin united) for the league championship game.  We match up well and before the game was in jeopardy of being a forfeit as Dunkin didn't have the minimum of 2 women in order to play.  However, just before the start of game, they did get enough to play a man down.  We actually had our 3rd woman show up after the start of the game so it was initially a 10v10 game.  About 5 minutes in we were up to full strength for a 11v10 game.

The weather was awesome.  Clear skies, sunshine and a dry (albeit semi-concrete hard) pitch.  We started out playing a little tight.  Over thinking, over pressing and some over dribbling by our mid-field.  This led us to not penetrate the final third for most of the 1st half.  The counter attack by dunkin almost led to 2 goals and at least 5 shots on goal.  Not exactly how I expected it to go.  We had a man up for crying out loud.  It has been my experience that when you start a game playing against a team a man down, it ALWAYS benefits the team down a man.

After the half, we started to have some frustration as we continued to struggle with the lack of offensive opportunities.  We had a couple of real opportunities but Dunkin has a very strong and fast back line.  We had 2 corner kicks that didn't provide any strikes.  We struggled to get a sustained drive down the wings and when we did, the centering pass was always late or too strong.

Finally we wrapped up regulation at 0-0.  Two 6 minute periods (no golden goal) and if still tied, shoot out.

I REALLY didn't want it to end with a shoot out even though our chances would have been good.  We still had some discontent on the sidelines as there was talk about "putting together our A team" to win out.  However, this A team doesn't really exist as there are experienced and inexperienced players but we can put together a good mix.  This didn't bode well going into extra time.  The first period of extra time comes and goes with no real opportunities.  Dunkin had one open shot on goal and in all honesty, it was good luck for us as their best striker just miss hit the ball.

On to the 2nd extra period.  Throughout the entire game to this point we were penalized much more than dunkin.  Some were legitimate fouls but some of the exact same fouls were not called against Dunkin.  That also starts to wear on us.  Finally with about 2 minutes left in extra time, we get a foul call against dunkin.  We actually cheered the call somewhat sarcastically from the sideline.  It was a free kick about 25 yards out from their goal slightly to the right of the box.  We opted for a pass to our right forward who dropped it back for our attacking midfielder.  He settled the ball and hit a beautiful crossing shot the found the upper left side of the goal.  1-0 us!  The sideline erupted.  But only momentarily as we had to close out and not give up the counter.  They did make one more push but we locked down the final third.

Whistle... Victory... Celebration!

This season was a series of ups (3 game winning streak, followed by 3 game losing streak and 2 ties before finishing with a win to get to the championship).  We struggled with new players, a fairly deep roster and some officiating debacles that made our journey more difficult.  But at that whistle, we finished it.  It wasn't pretty (other than the winning goal which was stunning) it wasn't easy but we did it.

I'm not sure what next season will look like but for right now, we are the champs.

Play on!!