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sunday, february 8th 2004 seoul-busan cup second leg, in seoul seoul british jokers 5 real busan 2 (ht: 2-1) scorers: mark williams, sebastian cabrera, p SHOCKER ~ REAL BUSAN LOSES GAME! After an hour today the score was 2-2 and the Jokers had just missed their second penalty of the game. They were the better team today, passing it round us and creating chances but on the field, you got the feeling that we'd hold steady. We were creating attacks of our own, chances of our own, we even took the lead today, but a late capitulation saw us leak 3 goals and that's the first full game we've lost in a year! In the end it was a 5-2 hammering, a fair scoreline, they had the better of us. Ach, it's probably good for our soul anyway... Still you got to ask what went wrong out there. Most guys are disappointed with their own performance and the team's performance ~ and here's why we lost ~ (a) We were all completely filled with alcohol and it showed. Every single player drank hard and late last night, and most players even longer the night before. All our excitement to be in Seoul meant we went out big time, but this afternoon it felt like 2002 all over again, when Real Busan were drunk and incompetent! We guys were physically and mentally slower today. (b) Too many best guys out. We took the field with 9 Real Busan players and a guy we met in the pub who'd clearly hardly played before. No Marcelo, Garrett or Scott Jolly, who are very big for us; and of course Gino injured (but in goal). Even our supporting guys were out. No Johnny Dong; plus John's still not "quite right" yet either even though he was out there sort of playing. (c) The Jokers had a full strength team this weekend. They were just so much better than last weekend. They had one amazing guy today called Rose, who they started as a sweeper, no doubt out of respect for us, but in the second half once they realized they were all over us they put him on the wing. He was "really" fast & skilful... (d) This one is open to conjecture perhaps but at 2-2 we decided to defend. We never defend! Once we started defending, they scored 3 times. Well here's the game story. It was a bright, sunny Sunday and we played on fantastic turf at the Seoul Foreigners' School. At the beginning we had a 3 goal lead from last week and a sporting challenge ~ hang onto it, with us at half strength. This was our line-up. (10 guys ~ and we went 10 against 10). Mike Lamb swept, Brendan Paul stopped, John played right mid and the guy from the pub played right back.
In the first minute, they curled a shot over to the top corner and Gino, injured but in goal, made a great save. Half way through the first half he also saved a penalty. The first half was characterized by some notable defensive interventions by us, also not least by Mike, playing like a monster as sweeper today and cutting out a lot of play. But we created chances too and took the lead, Seb put Kenny through, who cut it across to Mark who put it in. We thought we'd win at this point! Soon, Seb beat ~ really ~ about 6 guys but his shot was saved and we enjoyed a brief ascendant spell, with efforts from Mark and Kenny also giving us some hope. However, the Jokers equalized with a really nice goal, a quick cross from the left turned in first time made it 1-1; and then they took the lead, Gino punched out a corner onto their striker who kicked it in and they went in 2-1 up at half-time. Probably a fair scoreline, it reflected the Jokers' possession of the ball, although Real had the better chances up to this point. Second half begins and we pull John back to right back, ironically to "steady things at the back"! We equalize with a penalty, put straight down the middle by Seb. They get a penalty and miss it. It's 2-2 and you'd think we'd win. But this is the very point we begin to show how drunk we really are, and our fold begins to happen. They take give us huge problems on the wings and make their pace tell: on our left side, they get past Pedro and Hugh again and again and keep scoring. On our right side, Dave (the guy from the pub) and John are clearly struggling, physically and mentally, to stay in this one. This team boasted the best wingers Real has "ever faced", and today, at our worst... you can imagine... 20 minutes to go and they make it 3-2. 10 minutes to go and 4-2. 2 minutes to go and it's 5-2, they level the tie at 8-8, and win it on away goals. (We should have suggested penalties... they clearly have problems putting them away...) All in all this first SEOUL-BUSAN CUP was fun and a good thing to do. Good entertainment, and a tie of two games, really, each one the very opposite of the other. We killed them last week, they killed us today. Thanks to the Seoul British Jokers for makjing it happen with us, and congratulations for beating us ~ and now some more things we feel... (a) To win on the road is hard. The guys get all excited and DRINK ~ half of us don't make it in the first place... Look at the scorelines of the two games... (b) We did well to hold this rampant team for an hour... They were great but we still had our chances to put them away and... With just 1 of our missing few stars today, we would have had 'em! And all of us against all of them, and we'd win, we'd win, we'd win... man of the match: mike lamb Swept like a monster, whatever that means. Could have done with cloning him but it's still against the law and anyway, we don't know how to do it and we'd no doubt fuck it up and end up with Mike Lamb's body and Leo Sayer's head or something. And you don't want that. Mike just shaded the "air champagne" over Seb today, I thought. Never swept before but held and out of form back line in some semblance of shape, and cut out some promising attacks for us. Also burst upfield once or twice and almost made something happen. Mike Lamb ~ have yourself a nice glass of air, you deserve it. |
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sunday, february 1st 2004 seoul-busan cup first leg, in busan real busan 6 seoul british jokers 3 (ht: 4-1) scorers: mark williams 2, mike lamb, pedro o'donnell, kenny munn, sebastian cabrera The day began with a big bang and fizzle. With sudden beautiful weather popping out of a long string of blah winter days, and the PNU field booked, and the 4th best team in Seoul down for the SEOUL-BUSAN CUP, we arrived at the field only to meet a mountain-sized Korean spanner in the works ~ a carnival going on on our booked field! There were well over 500 people there, TV cameras, American football teams from all over Korea, banners, merchandising, the goals removed from the field... We did have our little bit of official paper saying the field was ours, but ~ some battles you don't take on. And so the race was on: find another field right now! Within half an hour, we had it. Aren't we amazing...! The clay field at Dongnae Middle School, for two 40 minute halves. The coach was just taking the kids training when we showed up, acted like best gentlemen, asked nicely, and the coach amazingly hauled his kids off and let us have our game of football. (By the way, this guy played for Korea in the Mexico '86 World Cup. And what a nice guy he was too...) First game of the year then. This is how we lined up:
All as before, except with Scott Jolly filling in at the back sweeping in place of Brendan; and no Gino Nini, who has injured his knee ligaments and is out for 6 months (if you ask the doctor) or 3 months (ask Gino). The Jokers were also a couple of guys short, so we gave them our two subs, who they stuck on the wings: Rob Nish, who they criminally underused, and Brendan Paul. And away we went. You might say we were all a bit rusty. The game for me stood out for its absence of good old Real Busan synergy. Where last season we played 'the beautiful game', all nice, flowing and telepathic, today in comparison was 'sort of horrible'! Ok it wasn't that bad, but we've played a lot better than this. Well, the game. An early goal by Mark Williams after 5 minutes and it's 1-0 to Real. Another one from Mark and it's 2-0. Two classic Mark goals as well, through balls from Seb down the left, and no mistake from the big striker. The game is pretty much a midfield contest, but with Scott and Garrett both excelling in the centre of Real's defence, there was just very little getting past them. Meanwhile Marcelo is spinning webs down the right hand side, and he created a fine goal when he nipped down the right in that 'Osvaldo Ardiles' way he has, got through the defence, cut back and put over a pacy, low cross for the advancing Mike Lamb to smash home for 3-0 and the nicest goal of the day. At this point it feels like victory, and round here, say the second half of the first half, was the game's most creative spell. Real had a period of good togetherness, with Seb really ascendant and 'on', and it was credit to the strictly administered offside trap played by the Jokers that the scoreline stayed respectable. In this 20 minute spell Real had a good move caught offside at least 5 times. The Jokers then pulled it back to 3-1, when their excellent #8 cut in on the right and drilled it into the corner. But straightaway it was 4-1, when Seb hit a shot from outside the box which the goalie spilled and Pedro nipped in like some lightning quick hobbit gypsy thief and put in the rebound. It looked amusing. All Pedro's goals look amusing. You just have to see them. The second half now. It wasn't pretty but it had to be played out... There's some tussle between Kenny and one of their guys, who went off with a hurt ankle and so the Jokers are down to 10 men. We volunteer to take a guy off too, so Pedro goes off, probably to rifle through their stuff for shiny items when they're not looking. Cross from the right and a defensive mix-up lets their Indian midfielder put in a fine header for 4-2. Kenny does a Pedro and puts in a rebound into the empty net for 5-2. John goes off to give his recovering knee a rest in a slightly farcical substitution: the injured competitor Gino comes on and goes in goal (and does a good job), while Jonathan fills in John's right back slot. Their solid #8 then rifles in a wonder goal, outside the box and a one degree angle which seemed world class until he admitted later that it was actually a cross and he couldn't do it again in 100 attempts, and it's 5-3. Finally Seb puts in a good, Seb-like goal from outside the box and it's 6-3. Mercifully, the ref blew up for full-time and let everyone take a rest. Ok, great, the football's back, it's been tedious without it. We've all had to go around with our wives and girlfriend's, shopping, pretending it's 'quality time', instead of playing our favourite sport ~ ~ but man there were one or two cobwebs on us today! Anything else? Yes ~ the winds of change are blowing ~ ! Brendan Morin's gone, Gino's out long-term injured, very soon two more excellent core players Mike Lamb and Garrett Whitworth are going ~ this is the backbone of our precious team, f***! How do we replace guys like these? What is football if it's not just one big change-management project? man of the match: marcelo gortari Today it seemed like we were searching for our momentum, and weren't really spinning webs like we usually do. However, this guy kept us ticking over while we were striving to get there, and our best moves tended to involve the Marcelo. Going forward he passed, moved, dribbled and crossed great; and all day maintained a bubbly presence on the right hand side, all by himself. So, the first 'air champagne' of the season goes to the guy with the skills on the wing... |
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