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Firecrackers win 5 games in 2 days!
Playing on
the Firecrackers Saturday: $70
Playing on the Firecrackers Monday: $50
Playing in the O’Connor Cup: $30
Winning the championship of all three: priceless!
The O’Connor cup
started out as a forwarded email that came to my inbox. A few days
later, the Firecrackers were entered in their third competition of the
year. With wins in the CAA, and the San Jose City leagues, expectations
were high, although it was decided that we should enter the “B”
division. Whether or not that was the correct decision is debatable,
but what is for certain is that everyone had a great time!
The tournament
started Friday night when all the teams had to check in. All the teams,
that is, except for team Iain (or is it Eeon?) Russel. It’s good to
know he still has all his Earthquake gear—he showed up to the check in
an old uniform and just told the admin that he was checking his whole
team in at the same time. (as a side note, they failed to make it out of
the preliminaries)
The Firecrackers
all met up at the sweaty cheese steak dive called Jersey’s to check in
for real. Some of the players got a cheese steak sandwich, and hung out
as everyone showed up. The joint was hot and the air was greasy, so
players trickled in and out, but most everyone showed up. That was the
difference that the Firecrackers brought to the tourney—everyone was
excited to play!
Friday night was a
hot one. For those of us who didn’t have air conditioning, the heat,
combined with the excitement of the tournament was too much. In my
case, I think I got only like 5 hours of sleep, scattered through the
night. 6 am came early!
The 3 Bas boys and
I met up at Johnny’s house to gather all our equipment and get to the
field. We got over 200 bottles of water, thinking it would be better to
be over prepared instead of under. As it turned out, that was just
enough for the first day. Jeremy brought about 50 bananas, and we went
through most of them as well.
Game 1
8 am couldn’t come
soon enough! Our first game pitted us against Ummah United. When they
first came out to warm up, they looked like a unkempt team that would be
easily disposed of. That wasn’t necessarily the case. They came out
very tough, but were soon overcome by the depth of the Firecrackers
roster. Any team with 8 high quality subs is a force to be reckoned
with.
The scoring is as
follows:
Goal 1
Jimmy Coggan from
Justin Basanese 7’
Goal 2
Free Kick, 25 yards
out. Donny Dequine bends it around the wall, and puts it far post
through the keepers hands. 25’
Goal 3
Franco Benevento
takes a corner, and puts it on Jim’s head. Jim flicks it across to
Ronnie Jenkins who puts it away. 40’
Ummah scores 1 43’
Goal 4
Jim steals the ball
from the sweeper, beats the GK with a shot, but and Ummah defender was
recovering, so Josh Patton put the ball away, 2 yards from the goal. “I
wasn’t going to put that in, but I thought the defender might make it
there so I knocked it in. Then told the ref to give it to Jim.”
4-1 Firecrackers
(1-0, 9 points)
Game 2
The Firecrackers
scouted The Rovers B team prior to their 11:45 match, and it really paid
off. We learned that they like to throw 3 quick forwards up at times,
and that their left mid was their playmaker. The ‘Crackers didn’t need
to make changes against this, but were very ready when the whistle blew.
Goal 1
Jimmy Coggan
received a brilliant pass from Brandon Stirm right at the 18 yard box
and blasted it first time to the back of the net. Suddenly the Rovers B
keeper wasn’t so cocky anymore.
Goal 2
Franco knocked the
ball to Dave at midfield. Dave heard calls for the ball to be played
down the line, so he hit it blindly down the line to a charging Jeff
Coggan. Jeff then hit it first time to his brother Jimmy, who dummied
the ball for Donny Dequine. Donny put it away.
(from now on, the
details are a little sketchy, so I’ll list the goal scorer and the
assist.)
Goal 3
Frankie Mata
(Justin Basanese)
Goal 4
Jimmy Coggan
(Frankie Mata) Jimmy drilled a shot to the side netting from 25 yards
out.
Goal 5
Jimmy Coggan
(Brandon Stirm)
5-0 Firecrackers
(2-0, 19 points)
Game 3
The third game of
the day came at 2:15 when the temperatures were hitting their peaks. It
is generally accepted that the fields hit 112 degrees. Luckily the
Firecrackers had 8 subs, lots of water and two tents for shade. They
also had a lot of goals to score, as the Falcons had just lost to the
Russos Borrachos. Interestingly, that translates loosely to “Drunk
Russians”. A loss to that kind of a team right before playing the
Firecrackers is never a good thing.
Goal 1
Dave passed to
Jeff, who then took one touch to beat a player and then buried the ball
from 25 yards out.
Goal 2
Brian Sturges threw
the ball in to Jimmy, who beat one player and then hit the upper-v.
Goal 3
Jeff Coggan stole
the ball near midfield, passed the ball to Jeremy. Jeremy switched the
ball to his brother Justin, who then hits the ball first time with his
left foot from 22 yards.
Goal 4
Brandon Stirm
(Jimmy Coggan)
Goal 5
Jim Coggan (UA)
Goal 6
Brandon Stirm (John
Basanese)
Goal 7
Josh Patton (John
Basanese)
7-0 Firecrackers (3-0, 29 points)
At this point,
everyone was really tired. The hot sun and combined with the 180
minutes of strenuous soccer started to take its toll. The Firecrackers
all went home to get out of the sun and into the cool. I spoke to a lot
of people and most everyone went out to eat that evening to be in a nice
air conditioned restaurant.
Both Dave and John
spoke to the tournament director, at different times and he provided us
with a little insight. John’s conversation had to do with the placement
of the Firecrackers in the tournament. The Firecrackers felt they had
been place a little low. When we were signing up, we went back and
forth between the A and B divisions, ultimately deciding on the B, since
it was our first year. This way we could get a good handle on what we
were doing and have some fun. “Well, we put you in the second B
division, but wait until you play Ummah or the Rovers,” to which John
replied, “You mean the teams we beat 4-1 and 5-0?” “You beat the rovers
5-0?!” replied the director, “Those two were the division favorites, and
could have easily gone to the A bracket…”
Dave asked the
director if it was usually this hot for the tournament, and everyone
around the medical area said that it had never even been close to this
hot. “This is just a freak year with the temperature. Usually this
tournament is like in the 80’s.” And then he went on about the World
Cup for a while… hopefully next year will be much cooler.
Day 1 ended with the Firecrackers having scored the most goals and
tallied the most points in the qualification round of the tournament.
The second day of
the tournament was a tough one. Everyone was a little tired and it was
tough to maintain the intensity of the previous day. Also, instead of
18 players, the Firecrackers found themselves with 14 at times, peaking
at 15.
The way the
tournament worked, the Firecrackers ended up playing the Falcons again
Sunday morning. It’s always tough to play hard against a team you know
you should beat, and actually did beat by 7 goals 18 hour earlier.
Game
4--Semifinals
While the decision
of the game was never in doubt, it took a while for the Firecrackers to
find the back of the net. It wasn’t for a lack of shots, though. Also,
in the first 10 minutes, the Falcons were awarded a penalty kick for a
hard tackle in the box. Could it be that the team that was never behind
in the tournament would start the playoffs down 1-0? No, the Falcons
missed and that was their only opportunity.
Goal 1
Franco Benevento
Goal 2
Donny Dequine (Jeff
Coggan)
Goal 3
Ahlgren (Dequine)
Donny should have had this one. He came flying in on a header, but the
goalie took a lucky dive. Ahlgren then chased the ball down and took a
shot from the end line.
Goal 4
John Basanese
(Franco Benevento)
4-0 Firecrackers (4-0, Semifinal Winners)
And on to the
finals!
By now, players
were really tired. We were hoping that Stonehouse or Frankie would be
able to show up for at least the finals to give us some rest, but
unfortunately they weren’t able to make it. It was down to 15 tired
Firecrackers, 112 degrees and 60 minutes. How would the tournament end?
The SV Rovers won
their playoff game against the Drunk Russians, and the final was set for
11:45. Would this be the 5th route in a row?
Game
5--Championship
The game started
quickly, with Jimmy Coggan scoring from a header crossed by Donny
Dequine. The Rovers, however were quick to answer, scoring soon after
to tie the game at 1. The Firecrackers scored once more to take the
lead once again 2-1. I didn’t write down who actually scored, but I
think it was Donny Dequine or Jimmy again. Then, with about 15 minutes
left, the Rovers took a shot from a long way out. When the ball got to
about 12 yards out, one of their players deflected it with his head a
little, and it went to the opposite side of the net that Travis was
heading to. There was no time for him to correct his path and the game
was all tied up! Play went back and forth, with neither team having an
advantage over the other.
Overtime was
rather uneventful until the last 30 seconds. One of the Rovers hit a
shot that looked to be going in, across the face of the goal. Travis
must have jumped 10 feet in the air, backwards to saye this one. He
caught the ball and landed with his arms outstretched, somehow managing
to hold on. After he punted the ball out, regulation was over. Penalty
kick time.
The Rovers won the
toss and elected to go first. Interesting strategy, but okay. They
made their first shot, and then Ronnie missed his. “Hey, I’m English…”
he said as he walked back. Dave and Justin were talking about each of
the shots before they happened, and guessed that Travis was about due to
block one. Sure enough, he blocked the second PK that the Rovers took.
Franco then stepped up and made his. They made theirs. Jimmy made
his. They missed the frame. Sturges made his. They made theirs. It
was now up to Brandon Stirm. If he made it the Firecrackers won the
Treble, and if he missed, the Rovers would have another chance. Brando
tucked it nicely away and the Firecrackers were victorious!!
2-2, 4-3 PK's Firecrackers (5-0, Tournament Champs!)
Everyone played
especially well throughout the tournament. It was great to be able to
rely on a strong defense. Paul Touchet, Brian Sturges, Antonio Favela,
Garret Ruiz, and a little bit from Ronnie Jenkins and Jeff Coggan proved
to be a very string lineup in the back. With Travis, they recorded a
0.6 goals against average for the 5 games. Really, a great job. The
midfield also played well, with surprise players of Franco Benevento and
Frankie Mata. Justin and Jeremy played well on the outside, as did Josh
Patton and Brandon Stirm. Donny Dequine and Brian Montejano played
strong in the middle, while the forwards rotated up top. Jimmy was
shooting from everywhere, and Dave and John did their best Ribery
impersonation.
All in all,
everyone played very well!
I hope you all had
fun and look forward to next year!
Cheers,
dave |
