2008 ROUND 3
LUSC Old Boys vs Waverley Wanderers 3 - 1

Goals:
Carmichael, Matthew (10)
Antonopoulos, John (35)
Klepp, Bruno (70)

Go Back to Old Boys Team Page here


The Flight of the Bald Eagle

The tone of the day was set before a ball was kicked. The referee made it clear he was a little man that was going to over compensate his short comings by going on a power trip and over officiate the match. He did not disappoint. The game started late as the referee was late to arrive and the halves were shortened to 40 minutes. It was clear from the outset that the Bald Eagles was the more skilful team, but the unevenness of the ground was going to negate much of that.

The referee quickly got into his role and stopped the game until Umbi moved away from the side lines. Umbi wouldn’t budge and the referee wouldn’t restart the game. Gerry pleaded with the referee to get on with the game, by trying to disown Umbi. Luca finally said something in Italian and Umbi moved. More importantly, we may have found someone that can help Lou and Paul Umina with their communication problems.

The Bald Eagles controlled the first period of play. At the 10 minute mark, Matt “Robbie Slater” Carmichael, thundered down the right hand side to receive a through ball from Luca and hit a cracker into the top corner. The Bald Eagles continued to attack missing several opportunities with Waverley Wanderers camped in their half. Johnny A was having a field day with every opposition player falling for the goose step. In fact he even goose stepped Bruno at one point. Against the run of play Waverley sprung The Bald Eagles offside trap. To be fair, we actually weren’t playing an offside trap - the defence was moving up and the Waverley player was 2 meters offside. The Waverley player miss kicked the ball to another Waverley player in an offside position who tapped in from close range.

The Bald Eagles regrouped and got back ahead with a lovely volley from Johnny A. The ball was played into the area and was poorly cleared by Waverley to Johnny A who was waiting at the top of the box. He swivelled on his left peg and fired the volley low and hard into the bottom corner of the goal. However, the highlight of the half would have to be Gerry pleading with the referee to stop speaking to him. The referee had made another mind boggling decision to which Gerry commented. The referee decided to stop and have a chat with Gerry, who promptly told the referee to go away. The referee insisted on speaking with Gerry, while Gerry insisted he not.

The second half continued in the same theme, with the Bald Eagles constantly attacking and Waverley struggling to get out of their half. The amount of missed opportunities was amazing- Sava missing a header wide when only 1 meter out in the middle of the goals, Gab running the ball out of play with nobody near him, AD missing the ball at the back post with only the thoughts of his honeymoon near him, and on and on.

The Bald Eagles finally scored late in the second half with a beautifully worked goal. Gab was released down the right. The ball was cut back to Gonis who laid the ball off for Bruno who hit an exquisite curling shot from out side of the box to beat the keeper comprehensively.

The game ended at 3-1. And while it wasn’t a pretty game, there were very good signs of the Bald Eagles playing the soccer we know we can play.