Team: McCreath, Di Fabio, Eryoruk, Taylor, Appleby, Herrity, Gutierrez, Dehombreux, Belfi, Braun, Ruiz Sub: Goell

MOM: Braun

A sunny September afternoon saw the 3’s taking a long drive south of Brusselsto the back of beyond and the very narrow pitch that is the home ground of Tourinnois. This was the week that would see newly married captain Herrity play his fist game of the season after his return from honeymoon as well as the first guest appearance of the season for the visiting Bernd Goell. It was also the game that would see Henrique Braun play his final match for the club before heading back to his Brazilian homeland to take on a new job assignment.

In spite of the good weather the match didn’t start well. In fact it hadn’t even started when keeper McCreath managed to twist his ankle again (a re-occurring injury from a few weeks previous) in the warm up! Thankfully the twist wasn’t too bad and he was able to start the game. And a bad start to the game it was with the 3’s finding themselves 2-0 down within the first 10 minutes. The first was an own goal, the opposition striker playing the ball across the face of goal from the right, only for it to deflect off the leg of Appleby past the hesitant McCreath. The second came from the opposite side, confusion between the keeper and defencegiving the striker time to set himself and fire in from a narrow angle.

It seemed to take these two goals to wake the 3rd team up and jerk them into actually playing some football. From looking like a side who would go down by a handful of goals the 3’s suddenly started taking control of the game. A slick move saw Ruiz de Alegriaput the ball in the back of the net and the game was back on. It wasn’t long before another good move saw the equaliser. Good work by Belfi gave Ruiz de Alegria the chance to play a great ball in from the right for Braunto run onto and rifle into the back of the net from six yards past the despairing opposition keeper. The remainder of the first half saw the 3’s dominate most of the play but no further clear cut chances were created by either side.

And so the second half started with the 3’s in high spirits and confident of being able to turn what had been a bad start into a win. It soon became apparent that the second half would be more of a battle as Tourinnois started playing the better football. It also turned into more than just a football battle, as the game started to turn a bit for the worse when the frustrations of the opposition started to boil over. The standard of football being played by the 3’s wasn’t helped by the fact that we started to concentrate more on complaining about the oppositions attitude instead of on the game of football itself. This loss of concentration led to a few lapses which saw the opposition nearly capatilise on a couple of occasions. Luckily for the 2’s McCreath was able to pull off a couple of good saves whilst the opposition also helped out by spurning several good chances to win the game and take all three points.

And so it was that the 3’s were able to hold on to the 2-2 and go home the happier side having salvaged a point from a game which was nearly out of site within the first 15 mins!

The post match drink saw Braunvoted MOM by his fellow team mates, not for the first time but unfortunately for the club as a whole, the last time! Henrique is certainly a player and a person who will be missed both on and off the pitch and it is a big loss to the club to see a player of his ability leaving. He has assured us however that he will fit in the occasional guest appearance on those occasions that he can organize a business trop to Brussels. And who knows, we may see him return a few years down the line…..