Another Victory

The miracle continues. Against the odds we stole a 2:1 victory. It was a tremendous display and an incredible achievement, considering that some of our better players were unavailable and we had to rely on reinforcements. A reasonable punter would have put his money on us getting creamed. Football is a romantic game however, a game of upsets and giant-killing and we showed that the fight does not necessarily go to the strongest.

To start things off, our midfield were shite. Our left winger could do nothing right and our right winger played like a weakling. The guy who was supposed to cover the centre with me had a propensity to drift to the right. Most of the time I was alone, trying to handle two, three opponents who were my size. I played arguably the most negative football a centre midfielder ever played. Every ball near me I either released first time to the forwards or the wingers, or just cleared it with no regard to its destination. I decided that if I couldn’t get the ball, neither would they.

Ordinarily any team with a modicum of intelligence should have just overrun the centre midfield. Instead, they pumped the ball to our left flank, where our left winger and left-back were being beaten for fun. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was not exactly I was holding my position particularly well. It was just that the left flank was so pathetic our opponents could have just walked around with a cup of tea and still retain possession.

To their credit our two forwards did try their best to drop back and help out. Unfortunately, starved of through passes, they were at times reduced to battling displays. The creativity was so severely lacking that our best route to goal was from corners. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think my mates made a masterstroke in letting me take the corners. We could have scored from four out of the eight or nine corners we had (In fact we scored from one – partly thanks to our opponents’ incompetent goalkeeper).

It was largely a tale of two keepers. While theirs was a joke, ours could have made the great Lev Yashin applaud his sterling display. His positioning sense was perfect, his command of the penalty box impeccable and his reflexes lighting-fast. It is no exaggeration to say that if it wasn’t for him, we would have been looking at a drubbing. His task was further helped by our opponents’ very wayward finishing. They had maybe 20 to 30 chances but only scored one. In contrast we had less than half their opportunities and we got two. Football is about taking chances. If you don’t score you don’t win. Simple.

Our defenders deserved some credit as well. We rode our luck at times, but their efforts could not be faulted. We might have relied on some good fortune but without resilience and honest pluck no amount of good luck would have helped. Towards the end they piled on the pressure and could have levelled matters, but we survived to celebrate a most magnificent result.