Friday, July 17, 2009

SA vs Great Britain (Game 3)

Our 3rd and final group match would see us come up against Great Britain, who at this stage had already qualified for the semi finals along with Mexico from Group B.

As the 2 teams were staying at the same hotel, the poms had been at us the whole day, chiroing us left, right & centre, but we took it no problem, knowing that we would be doing our chirping on the pitch.

After our team meeting and the announcement of the starting 11, the boys were eager to get out onto the pitch and do the business. We arrived at the field at 5pm, went through our warm-up & strapping from our 2 SUPERHUMAN physio's Farel Cohen and Richard Sutton.

The formation for this game would again be our more attacking one, that of a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield.

Team Lineup:
Robert Cohen, Dan Fine, Michael Selikow, Gary Katzman, David Valentini, Ryan Jankelowitz, Colin Gewer, Robert Sulcas, Ilan Herman, Lawrence Sacke, Warren Lewis

The opening few minutes were frantic, with both sides flying into tackles, along with some words from both dugouts...................... (not me of course)

15 mins into the 1st half disaster struck, a free kick was conceded outside our box on the left hand side. The wall was placed, the keeper was ready and..............................................BANG! a total miss kick and somehow the ball landed up in the back of the net, Bafana Bafana down 1 nil.

The game continued to be a heated one, with Bafana putting in some heavy challenges, just letting the poms know that we had not been effected by the goal and would be taking the game right back to them. However just before half time, the poms scored twice (29th & 31st min), increasing thier lead to 3 - 0.

A minute later (32nd min) we received our 1st yellow card of the tournament, most bets were on Clive Snoyman, David Valentini or Yaron Frankental to get the 1st yellow, however it was Dan "the paralyzer" Fine who picked up the 1st yellow card, with a full blooded slide challenge. When asked what was going through his mind at the time, this was Dan's reply " i was already committed, couldnt get out of it, i had too.......", nice one Dan :)

Great Britain led 3 - 0 at the half.

After a half time talk from the special one, Wwarren Lewis, the 2nd half kicked off. All was going well until the 42nd min, where once again we conceded a soft goal and the lead increasing further for the poms. Just over halfway into the 2nd half the poms scored thier 5th and final goal, capitalizing on a very unconvincing performance this far from Bafana Bafana.

However 3 mins later would be the moment that the whole team and all the Bafana supporters were waiting for................................OUR 1ST GOAL!!!!

A floated in corner by Colin Gewer landed on Dan 'the paralyzer" Fine's head, who gracefully glanced it into the far post of the goals, making up for his yellow card earlier on in the game, the bench erupted with joy!!!

We thought that hopefully the floodgates had opened, but unfortunately it was not the case as the final score was 5 -1 in favour of Great Britain.

All in all, not Bafana's best performance, but our next game is against Brazil at the Neve Sha'anan fields in Haifa at 4pm on Sunday 19th July, where we will be fighting it out for places 5 - 8 and i have no doubt that having opened up our goal soring account, the team can pull off our 1st win of the tournament against the Brazilians on Sunday.

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