BRFC o-30's Match Report - 11/22/09 by Ben Weiner

BRFC o30's 1 Pele Masters 2

The o-30 Rovers continued their long slow decline to the bottom of the table this past Sunday. This one was a heart breaker, however, since for most of the match we held a 1-0 lead over the division leaders Pele Masters.

The match began with a speech by Coach Weiner suggesting that if the Old Boys can take points from league leaders Dinamo then there was no reason we can't make Pele Masters part with a few points. We hoped to follow the Old Boys lead and have just as exciting a game to report. For about 70 minutes we thought we might do just that.

The Masters seemed to start flatter then we remembered their abilities as we held the majority of play in their half. We had possession, movement, and enthusiasm. Inevitably this led to an Un-mackers run down the wing, a quick move around the defense, and a neat slot past the keeper in the right side net. 1-0 Rovers.

Our play and hopes went skyward. Even with a Ref seemingly giving the Masters every call , including a blatant hand ball in the area off a cross, we pushed on. At least 2 other goals should have been notched by the fighting Rovers, but a couple of bad choices ended in lame shots rolling to the keeper instead of going to the open forward that could have walked them in. These turned out to be key misses. Perhaps a couple more goals would have been the un-doing of the Masters.

We went to the half still up 1-0. We kept to the game plan and continued to hold play. Then somewhere around the 65th minute you could see the gears slow down on the Rovers machine. Whether fitness or just the relentless pressure of the Masters (who seem to make a career out of come-backs) we could not hold onto our lead. By the 70th minute the Masters had unleashed their speed demon on the left wing. No one knew where he had been the rest of the game but this guy is a likely Olympic sprinter as he made any and all of our players appear to be in slow motion as he blew past our guard towards goal. His pressure ended with a scuffle ball in the box that flipped over Jean-Marc and popped slowly in the upper net.

Our hopes to keep it at a tie faded as the sprinter kept forcing Jean-Marc to make beautiful 1 on 1 saves. One such attack was not thwarted and the Masters took the lead with less than 5 minutes to go. At that point we were defeated and perhaps lucky to keep it only 2-1.

It was a sad day as it felt our move off the bottom of the division was snatched from us. Maybe a little more fitness, maybe a few missing key players. At least it was a proud run for 70 minutes showing we can play with the best.