Barcelona No Match for Firecrackers

Date: 08-26-08

by Travis Bianchi (Captain's log)

Since the start of the Firecracker brand in the spring of 2005 we have now played 70 games (not counting the O’Conner Cup).  Our record in the Monday night league during that span is 48 wins, 15 losses and 7 ties.  We have 195 goals scored for and 93 given up amassing a goals for average of 2.79 a game and 1.33 against per game.  We haven’t had the same team all along and looking back I would say that we have the strongest team right now helping those averages.

Last night only helped those numbers and also pushed us to 4 – 0 this session.  I thought that we played that team last week but apparently that was just another whining, crying team that knew from the beginning they were going to have to try something else besides soccer to beat us.  The most work I got all night was in the pre-game warm up when Brandon, Donny and Johnny were taking some good cracks against me.

We knew we were going to win before the game started and that can be the only criticism of the game.  We started too cocky and played that way even with only a slight lead.  Myself included when I played a ball out to Brandon in the middle with about 4 guys around him.  Not surprising he was able to one touch the ball out of harms way but Rich had to remind me as well that that was a pretty stupid decision. Agreed.

The passing and ball movement was the best all year though.  We spread the ball all over the field and really used the space we had constantly switching and driving the ball up both sides.  The center mids dominated the middle of the field both on offense and defense helping both ends take away any of the other teams momentum.  It seemed like as soon as they would string together 2 or 3 passes it was ours again.  They had one forward who was “their guy” that stayed to our right and kept screaming for the ball but unfortunately for him he had Garret glued to him for most of the night.  They didn’t create many opportunities and the only real shots came from set plays just outside the box that we gave them.  The idea was thrown out there that maybe we let them take a shot without a wall but our cockiness stopped just short of that mark!

Our next game is in two weeks against an old foe in Agave.  This will be our 10^th time playing them in this league.  We have gotten the better of them in that time with a 5-1-3 record against them but I think anyone who has been there for any of those games will tell you they always play us tough and that one loss was a 1-0 dagger in the playoffs.  They played before our game and looked like they added some players making them at least look better than last season.  Two weeks is a long time off between games so take it upon yourself to at least look at a ball during that time.

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