20080316 Match Report vs Azzurri

An interesting encounter that saw us pegged against our closest rivals this season. They now sit 4 points ahead of us and still have the Beijing Rockers game which will give them a 6-0 victory. We won’t meet them again this season, but we can still beat them in the table. Our current position puts us above Celtics and Renda with Azzuri reachable and Italy 10 points clear. Our objective this season should be first to retain our current position, then to beat Azzuri on the table, our super objective is to finish above Italy in the top four. If we all pull together and play our best, I believe these objectives are attainable.

The game started well with the teams evenly matched for the most part. A defensive error lead to the first opportunity but nobody could stop the pace of the Azzuri forward who rounded a number of defenders before finishing from an impossible angle.

Shortly before half time, the switch to 4-4-2 was made. This gave the Barbarians the upper hand though we failed to capitalise before the half time whistle. Half time score 1-0. The second half saw more of the same, with Barbarians doing most of the attacking. A stonewall penalty, was ignored by the referee as an Azzuri player swung his foot dangerously high in the box, not for the first time during this game. Then a Barbarian goal kick was miscalled, Azzuri scoring with a powerful header from the resulting corner. Unfortunate refereeing had seen us 2-0 down when we could have been level. A third goal quickly followed, making the bad refereeing a mute point. Claudius’ late consolation goal was too little too late and an Azzuri 4th put the game to bed.

Both teams know they played a game of football which was a lot closer than the score line would suggest.

Special mentions this week for:

• Bart, who played well and contributed a great deal in no less than three positions on the pitch. A well deserved man of the match. 
• Miltos, who played well on the wing providing good passes and retaining possession, but more importantly stepped up as reserve keeper.
• Jimmy, who risked life and limb to keep us in the game, hope the bruised arm recovers soon.
• Claudius, our goal scorer, who combined well with Thomas to take the attack to the Italians.
• Andrew, for turning up to support us.
• And Johan, our absent keeper who we all hope makes a quick recovery from his broken ankle.

Up, up Barbarians!

First Eleven:

               Claudius

Miltos      Bart      Christoph      JJ

                Nicolas

Jacob      Mark      Sebastian      Siri

                Jimmy

Subs: Michael, Thomas, Raul, Samy

Captain: Christoph

Man of the match: Bart

Assists: ?

Goals: Claudius

Final Score 4-1