CSL 2009, Week 14

[Rocket Robin]

Result of the Friday August 14, 2009 CSL game between Portugal FC and Trois-Rivieres Attak played at Lamport Stadium in Toronto at 8:00pm.

45 min…Attak RED card…Guillaume Heroux earns a direct ejection for his part in a pushing match.

…………PFC RED card…Selmir Sehic earns a direct ejection for his part in a pushing match.

Heroux started the incident with a tackle from behind on Sehic at PFC 45 yard line and Sehic retaliated.

93 min…Attak RED card…Dirlecot Nana earns a direct ejection for his sliding tackle on PFC Ahmed Hersi at PFC 35 yard sideline injuring him after whistle against Hersi by referee Justin Tasev.

95 min…game ends 10:00pm.

Final Score:…….Portugal FC………0………….Trois-Rivieres……….0………….

Attendance was about 30 fans dedicated to watching this fan but swelled to about 100 near the end for people waiting for the U-Sector permit to start and them to start their recreation league game. PFC has not been able to play a home game here in over two months because of the City of Toronto workers strike keeping this stadium locked. The team has sagged in the standings with them holding onto the last playoff spot.

The game wasn’t as rough as the Red card incidents made it seem as I only counted two Yellow cards during the match.

Attak are a fast team but they always made one pass too many or had a PFC defender catch them before getting a clear shot. Michael Silva earned the shutout for PFC.

Their back line of Andrew Leite, Kevin McIntosh, Jaroslaw Radzinski, and captain/head coach Danny Amaral were solid. Amaral has put himself in games as a forward when scoring was important. PFC was missing Ramon Bailey who has not returned from Colombia and defender Taylor Lord who I heard was called up by the Canadian Under-20s. Attak held a large margin over PFC in the number of cornerkicks.

David Lamoureux earned the shutout for the Attak.

It was a fair result and I got the feeling that neither team was going all out to risk a counterattack and lose the point. The Attak have a game tomorrow against the undefeated Toronto Croatia (Attak are the only team this season that is allowed to play two games in two days to cut back on expenses. Portugal FC must have seen the standings as they had 12 points and Attak had 24 before this game started.

Portugal FC earns an important point against one of the league’s best teams. The two teams below them had North York Astros lose against Serbian White Eagles and London City with their first win since August 2007 beat TFC Academy who were playing with about seven players from their main team away at the Francophone games representing Canada.

Rocket Robin

robing@eol.ca

[RS]

That second red to the Attak was well deserved. Nana two-footed the player well after the whistle was already blown for a foul committed on the same player by one of his Attak team-mates.

From the little bit of the match I saw (about 20 minutes), the ref had very little control of the match. There were late challenges on every 50/50 ball, and little elbows and shirt tugs away from the play that the ref and linesman seemed to continually miss.

On the plus side, a few of us got to yell out some anti-Impact stuff, which had the Attak bench turn around a few times with puzzled looks on their faces.

[VPjr]

quote:Originally posted by Rocket Robin

TFC Academy...were playing with about seven players from their main team away at the Francophone games representing Canada.

Hey Robin

good game report, as always. much appreciated.

Just to clarify, the missing TFC players were representing Ontario at the Canada Games.

IF any TFC-A players are released to the CSA for the Francophone Games, they will be leaving in mid-September.

[Rocket Robin]

Result of the Sunday August 16, 2009 CSL game between Brampton Lions and St Catharines Wolves played at Victoria Park in Brampton at 3:00pm.

23 min…Lions Daniel Nascimento GOAL…Lions Alex Arbelo follows up on a Wolves partial clearance with a cross to the left for Lions David Guzman at 22 yards to roll a centering pass to charging Nascimento who eludes defender at 20 yards and kicks in 8 yarder to right side of net.

29 min…Lions Daniel Nascimento GOAL…Lions defender Mo Karanoum in center circle chips to right for Nascimento at 40 yards and he runs unchallenged along right to 25 yards where he chips goalie Wolves Claudio Perri who was standing at 5 yards to cut down the angle and the ball drops just below the bar into center of net.

73 min…Lions Cameron Medwin GOAL…Lions Jeremy Shepperd sends pass from 35 yards that goes through off defender’s leg to Medwin who is in open up middle and he blasts 15 yarder that goalie gets piece of but ball squeezes through his hands into middle of net.

Final Score:……..Brampton Lions……….3………..St Catharines Wolves………..0………..

Attendance was about 120 on this very hot and sunny day.

It kept being announced that this was a game for second place (in the National Division) although yesterday TFC Academy won to become three points ahead of both teams but has played more games. It was hard to believe that Wolves had played 10 games and had scored 11 times yet had a stellar defensive record of 11 goals against. I couldn’t blame the hot temperature which had players grabbing water bottles at any sign of injury or substitutions as the Wolves were pinned in their own end right from the start of the game. Only escape was the long ball which would mean that the Lions would just start another play into the Wolves end. Maybe the Lions played better at Victoria Park because the City cut the grass making the ball roll easier.

Kevin Doyle earned the shutout for Brampton only being called on for a few key saves—most important at 33 minutes when Scott MacLennan stole the ball off a player at 40 yards and ran in and took a low 22 yard shot that was saved by the sprawling goalie at 15 yards. Actually back up goalie Amardeep Kharod shared the shutout when he came in at 81 minutes to earn some playing time. Claudio Perri had to be sharp in the net to keep the score down when the Wolves were forced to open the game up in the second half and he had to make some point blank saves on Lions breakaways. He also had to the edge of his box or outside it to make clearances of through balls.

Referee Gianni Facchini gave out a few Yellow cards in what was not a rough game. The Wolves were more upset at the referee’s assistants because only about 50% of their offside traps earned them the call they wanted.

The game was certainly a contrast to last Sunday night’s game when the Wolves were in the GTA to play Toronto Croatia and the game couldn’t be started because of a thunderstorm. Wolves then went home on Wednesday and tied Italia Shooters. The Lions scored five goals in last week’s game against North York Astros.

Rocket Robin

robing@eol.ca