The one with the wasted chances.
October 10th, early kick-off in the sun with a nice breeze make for a wonderful start to the weekend on our best day of the week.
After an unbeaten start to the season with all 6 games a big fat W, Vets 1 were travelling to Auderghem to face Choule. A team sitting at the bottom of the table with 2 draws and 4 defeats. But our very own data research quant Max S. highlighted that these boys had a rather hard start to the season and have faced ITT, Tourinnois, Gast and Ambiance amongst others. They also managed to score a couple of goals against these teams so their position in the league is probably a bit of a false flag operation.
Captains message in the changing room was clear: humility, compactness, communication and simple passes. Pass and move, especially on a small pitch like this one. Bill promised on Friday that if we do those things well, we’ll score loads…well, we could’ve scored loads but more on that later…
Lineup:
GK: Kris ‘Neuer can babysit my kids’ Mercelis LB: Mark ‘Roberto Carlos asked for my autograph’ Pellegry CB: Igor ‘I am Jaap Stam reborn’ Kiper CB: Max ‘Relax, Baresi calls me every week for tips’ Solovei RB: Tini ‘The black Cafu’ Palaey LW: Maarten ‘The Flemish Ryan Giggs’ Billiet CM: Andrew ‘Hodgelele’ Hodgson CM: Rich ‘Gunning for the POTS trophy’ McGeehan ACM: Nils ‘I taught Berbatov everything he knows’ McGrath RW: Marko ‘Modric and I were best mates in school’ Blaskovic ST: Marcelo ‘4 missed calls from Ancelotti’ De Lima
Finisher 1: Laurent ‘English is so difficult’ Legère Finisher 2: Gavin ‘Fergie once asked me if I was a striker in disguise’ O’Connor Finisher 3: Ala ‘Salah’ Aboudaka
Over to the match itself.
It was clear from the start that the Choule right back would not particularly enjoy his afternoon as lots of slippery passes from McGeehan and Hodgelele were slid into the path of the marauding Bill who got the better of him most times. In the first 20 minutes glorious opportunities were presented to De Lima who managed to expertly divert one of the crosses to the corner flag, McGrath who looked at the ball like he lost his library card and Blaskovic who blasted wide.
We managed to play nice football nonetheless with good interplay between our golden midfield triangle, wingers and wingbacks while our Ukranian wall was majestic and almost impenetrable.De Lima was showing really crafty hold up play and even tried on overhead kick to release Blaskovic. Choule on the other hand did not pose any real threat. Their centre back deserves a mention for his bravery and clear winner of the nutmeg contest.
The deadlock was broken around the half hour mark when De Lima stole the ball after a throw in and slid in a clever ball to McGeehan who returned the favour and passed it back to De Lima, now at the edge of the box. A clever composed pass to Blaskovic on the right wing who saw Billiet crashing into the box. Could this be the day that his 0% conversion ratio curse would be broken? Maybe…Blaskovic didn’t hesitate and fired a low cross into the POMO. A groin killer as we vets call them. Billiet stretched his giraffe legs and just managed to get a touch on it. 1-0!!! Deserved.
The ref blew the whistle for half time. Nothing is done here, we needed to get that 2nd goal on sooner rather than later.
The pattern of play was very similar in the 2nd half where Choule managed to let go of their best player who apparently had better things to do. The brits continued to dominate play. Whenever a Choule attacker managed to get through, both Pellegry and Palaey have that lovely recovery pace to instantly snuff out the danger and calmly pass the ball to one of our midfielders. Mercelis in the meantime was wondering if he’d done his groceries for his bbq later tonight.
The introduction of Aboudaka for De Lima brought some fresh legs to our attack. He made clever runs and held up the ball well for the incoming wingers. Promising signs…
Did I mention missed chances?
• Blaskovic made sure the Choule goalie looked like prime Preudhomme • McGeehan checked if the goalie was able to react to shots fired straight at him • McGrath was aware to give the ball back to the other pitch • Aboudaka wanted to know if he could score headers with his eyes closed • Billiet tried to cut inside like his idol Titi Henry just to release a shot that even his grandmother would have saved
Anyway, salvation came after our very own legend legère played a clever pass to Aboudaka who used this body to shield the ball from the defender and turn the other way and firing a low shot in the bottom left corner. The sweet sound of a ball hitting the inside of the post and the swoosh of the net. 2-0!! Game over.
Final thoughts: We do the simple things well but we made it a bit hard for ourselves by not finishing all the chances we create. Fix that and we will be very hard to stop for anyone. Everybody has a role to play and we can only be successful if we all put our personal opinions and thoughts in a separate box that we can store somewhere next to the bibs in the Kraainem cupboard and fight until the end, together, as a team, as a unit, as a group of friends in order to lift that trophy at the end of the season.
Take Chèvre!!!
