[VMSL Division 2] Results, Banter & Predictions - Feb-March 2007

[bonefish]

2A

1. IFC Polonia vs Bosna SC: Bosna posted a big win vs Kosova last week. Was that a indication of some new signings? We will see....
2. PCOV "A" vs Aryana FC: Aryana has conceded 52goals. I don't see anything changing this week.
3. Bombastic SC "A" vs City FC Cobras: A resurgent Cobras have a chance to climb to 4th spot with a victory over a defensively sound Bombastic.
4. Kosova SC vs Maplewood United:Maplewood look to make their climb in the standings as long as they are able to put their "sleeper" move on Kosova
5. Signmaster SC vs Firefighters "C":Signmaster should have no issues locking up a less than average Firefighter squad.

No huge matchups in 2A but there is a 4 team dogpile forming for what could be the magic 4th place spot that guarantees a cup entry.

2B

1. KLM Alemania FC vs Douglas Park: MOTW: Alemania need a win and help to gain 4th spot in this group. Their first leg match ended in a tie.
2. Cleo's FC vs Belmont FC:If Belmont shows up victory is theirs. Cleo's sponsorship might want to review pregame perks that could be affecting onfield performance
3. "B" United vs Primo FC "A": No longer an unblemished Rose, Primo take 3 academic pts.
4. West Van Royals vs Richmond FC: West Van have been putting up some good results. Richmond looks to be in a dogfight for this match.
5. Unicorns FC vs Nomads FC "A": Unicorns could gain 3rd spot in the league with a win and further solidify a top 4 finish.

Aside from Alemania/DP, Richm/WV should be another interesting match.

2C

1. City FC Rangers "A" vs FC Sandzak: The Power Rangers look for a 8th win of the season. Sandzak are struggling for consistency but then again, they have played 2 weeks in a row since the end of Oct.
2. Westside FC Knights vs C-Men United: The C-Men have had a tough go this season as have the Knights, although for different reasons. The Knights must have changed distributers for their apple crumble elixir and the C-Men get an F grade for team discipline.
3. Norvan JB's vs EV Socceroos "A":Norvan played with little conviction and desire the previous week and it cost them 2 important points. Back home on the sweet turf should see them restore some pride.
4. Green Devils FC vs Yaletown FC: MOTW: GD's look to win their 4th consecutive match. They need to shut down 1 player. Yaletown will have to work a full 90 min and score first. Unfortunately the pitch may be a factor in this matchup.
5. FC Romania vs IFC Zawisza: Romania have a 4pt cushion for the promotion Race. Zawisza with only 1 pt to show since the middle of Oct will be hard pressed to change that.

Hopefully all games get played this weekend to allow at least a 16team Cup draw. Best of luck to all. Go Colts!!

[bonefish]

New Month

[Teelay]

Cleos 2- Belmont 0

Holy yit - I'm not one to complain about the reffing we get in this league (hit or miss it seems), but I think we had the worst referee for our game this afternoon. This inconsistencies were astonishing as were his interpretations of the rules (eg he claimed that one of our players was offside when they had one guy planted squarely on the post. His explanation was there needed to be 2 defenders and a keeper behind the ball to keep us onside, and there was only 1 defender in this instance).

He then said his calls didn't affect the outcome of the game... huh??? I don't get it - I guess we just throw this one away and move on now. Hopefully this ref sticks to Girls U12 soccer.

[Oggy]

City FC 9-0 Sandzak

What happened here? I can't imagine that Sandzak had 11 men for this one. Any input?

[BlazeArmy]

3-0 at the half. My call midway through the first half was if we got 3 by halftime we would hang 7 or 8 on them. I was wrong.

They had 12 or 13 players. it is actually a little bit flattering as we could have had 7 or 8 more if we had finished off some of our early chances better. Sandzak decided to try and see if not playing d and tryin to push would work. it didn't. their kick and run was easily stopped and their 2 chances were wasted. Their keeper had a good first half and then got tired as the play was in their end for 90 percent of the game. honestly, we played ok but not great but sandzak were awful.

[bluemammoth]

[quote=Teelay]Cleos 2- Belmont 0

Holy yit - I'm not one to complain about the reffing we get in this league (hit or miss it seems), but I think we had the worst referee for our game this afternoon. This inconsistencies were astonishing as were his interpretations of the rules (eg he claimed that one of our players was offside when they had one guy planted squarely on the post. His explanation was there needed to be 2 defenders and a keeper behind the ball to keep us onside, and there was only 1 defender in this instance).

He then said his calls didn't affect the outcome of the game... huh???


Yeah the ref was terrible. And that call on the offside was particularly shocking. But the strange calls were going both ways. The ref was correct in one respect - it did NOT affect the outcome of the game. Belmont had ONE good chance on net the entire game, which our keeper made a good save on. They were only able to string together passes between their back defenders, and were not able to create anything in the attacking third of the pitch. They have one great player #4 (I believe Joey is his name), and he was the difference the last time we played Belmont. This time we contained him.

[Teelay]

bluemammoth,

Your second goal was a direct result of one of your players getting his foot up near the head of our 6'3" defender's face (how's the groin???). 5 minutes before that he called a high foot foul on one of our guys who kicked the ball at about waist level as your player went down to head it. I have no problem with the first call as it was borderline high foot, but the lack of call on the 2nd high foot was a flukey chip in the back of the net. That non-call directly affected the outcome of the game.

I'll agree with you that the 1st half saw an equal amount of strange calls for both sides, but I guess the promise of a rub & tug at halftime from the Cleos sidelines resulted in the ref making the calls anti-Belmont from minute 45 to 90.

[bluemammoth]

Originally Posted by Teelay

bluemammoth,

I'll agree with you that the 1st half saw an equal amount of strange calls for both sides, but I guess the promise of a rub & tug at halftime from the Cleos sidelines resulted in the ref making the calls anti-Belmont from minute 45 to 90.

Actually, the promise of a rub and tug was made to your keeper before the game. Wasn't it obvious? Come to think of it, we forgot to tell him that our sponsor is closed for Super Bowl Sunday. Hope he's not standing outside on Richard street in the rain...

[Therapist]

Norvan 7 Socceroos 1

Not much to say about this one. Score says it all.

[the 5th back]

C-men United 3 Socceroos 1 (yesterday at Burnaby Lake)

We spotted them the lead in the first half - Played a much better second - finally got some scoring and took the 3 points as we should have. I stopped by South Memorial today to watch Yaletown vs. Romania. When I left at halftime it was 1-1, and Romania were down to ten men due to a straight red given to their no. 9 after he chopped a guy down from behind. Any game reports?

[BlazeArmy]

Rangers 3 - Zawisza 1

They started with 9 and eventually ended with 11. 3-0 for us in the first 30 minutes before they scored one right at halftime. 2nd half was fairly boring with both sides missing some chances. Score was a fair reflection of the way the game went. We should have had 2 or 3 more but a win is win is a win.

[Oggy]

Originally Posted by the 5th back

C-men United 3 Socceroos 1 (yesterday at Burnaby Lake)

We spotted them the lead in the first half - Played a much better second - finally got some scoring and took the 3 points as we should have. I stopped by South Memorial today to watch Yaletown vs. Romania. When I left at halftime it was 1-1, and Romania were down to ten men due to a straight red given to their no. 9 after he chopped a guy down from behind. Any game reports?

Just got back from hospital. Our player who was fouled will be on crutches for a few weeks. It was a pretty fcuking horrendous challenge with no intent but to injure. The Romania player should be banned for at least as long as it takes for our guy to be able to run again, which will probably be a couple of months. No apology followed the play, even when our player was carried off, showing an astonishing lack of class on their part.
Unfortunately, our squad was pretty thin today and losing a good player hurt us about as much as the red card did them. Both sides had several chances in the second, but Romania got the only other goal off an unlucky clearance that their striker did well to take control of and put into an empty net. Their keeper also saved a penalty in the dying minutes to preserve the win.
I think that they have promo clinched after the Green Devils loss yesterday, but I assume that next year the other Div. 1 sides will have a way of dealing with the violent challenges that some of the Romania players like to dish out. Most of the team seem to be good guys, but a couple of them, like the red-carded jackass, are just out to injure people and should be banned from the game.
As for the cup race, I think the last few weekends mean that we'll be stuck in fifth at the end of things. The way things have been going lately, I don't see us going very far in the cup even if we did qualify, while City FC has definitely started coming together recently, and have the potential to cause some surprises. A terrible run of injuries and several key players moving away for work has really hurt us this season, especially since Christmas. We'll have quite a bit of rebuilding to do over the summer before next season starts.

[bandcamp]

Belmont 6 - 0 B United

On the turf up at Point Grey. B United played shorthanded and it was one-way traffic all night. By the end the soccer was terrible and we were just waiting for the ref to call it. Cracker against RFC this weekend

[stu]

cheers for the write-up oggy and much respect to you and rahoul for ferrying the two gimps around to the hospital. i feel obliged to mention that our keeper hurt himself in the match, when sans-defenders he bravely charged out 2 on 1 and managed to get a piece of the ball, just enough to disrupt the attack and let the defence scramble to clear the line. however in doing so he managed to brutally dislocate his elbow.

at the time, none of us knew the extent of his injury... only that he was in pain and couldn't move his arm. but upon arrival at the hospital he removed his jersey and the three of us were rather horrified to see his radius/ulna (forearm bones) sticking out an inch behind his elbow. i had the (dis)pleasure of seeing his x-rays while i was in the emergency room and he had total dislocation of elbow joint by a good inch. get well soon buddy.

and to #9 of romania... you are a lowlife and i sincerely hope karma kicks you in the ass very soon (ie. get jumped and beaten severely) because you deserve that and more. if i ever have the chance of playing against you again, you are getting an elbow in the face.

[Oggy]

Originally Posted by stu

at the time, none of us knew the extent of his injury... only that he was in pain and couldn't move his arm. but upon arrival at the hospital he removed his jersey and the three of us were rather horrified to see his radius/ulna (forearm bones) sticking out an inch behind his elbow. i had the (dis)pleasure of seeing his x-rays while i was in the emergency room and he had total dislocation of elbow joint by a good inch. get well soon buddy.

It was pretty horrendous. The little kid sitting next to us in the waiting room when we took his shirt off almost lost his lunch after seeing it.
I must say, the man is a hard bastard, and we had to restrain him from using his good arm to put his forearm back into his elbow himself at the field.

[dr.j]

Knights over Los Diablos en Verde 3-2. The Knights continue to throw a wrench into the 2C title race. Unbeaten in the new year, including a tie with JB's and a win over the Green Devils has served to make life difficult for those with aspirations of catching the Romanians. An early goal and several other near-miss opportunities seemed to unsettle the Greenies. Westside were especially dangerous on their free kick opportunities, scoring their third just before halftime on a set piece. Both sides traded chances in the second half until the Rattler was unceremoniously removed from the proceedings. Their punk ass defender does not know how close he came to opening up a whole can of whoop ass by his ill advised tackle. The extra space benefitted the younger Devils,with the Knights goalie having to make one excellent save and break up a few other opportunities. The Devils might have made more of their late game possession had the guy with the bad-look buddha style pony tail passed instead of trying to dribble through the whole team. Nothing funnier than seeing a guy take on three or four defenders before blowing his load as soon as he gets near the 18. Dribble,dribble,dribble,dribble,shoot! Throw- in Knights... It got to the point that the wingers stopped making their runs into space because they were too busy yelling "pass the effing ball!" Too funny. Looking forward to seeing the Knights jump up a few spaces in the celebrated BF (Bonefish) polls. Too bad there is no cup play this year now that we seem to have once again found the apple crisp recipe we misplaced.

[bukkakemon]

polonia 3-0 signmaster

this game was never in doubt as we went up 1-0 in the first 10 and continued to carry the play for the rest of the half. 1-0 at half. signmaster had a goal dissallowed early in the second off a corner due to goalkeeper interference, but that was the only time during the whole game they came close to scoring, or even having a sniff of the net. we went up 2-0 soon after and our forward popped in his second off a nice header to make it 3-0. overall a dominant performance by our guys. the funniest was their keeper after the game, who instead of shaking our hands after a good game he went to their sidelines, punted his water bottle, and wallowed in his own self pity. come to think about it, he did that the first time we played them after lighting him up for 4! what a clown. any idea when the cup draw is taking place? there was a notice posted on the fantastic site about placement for provincials, saying top 3 in cup play qualify, so cup play would have to start pretty soon.

bukkakemon

[bonefish]

Norvan 4-2 Sandzak
Sanzak started with 9 and gave up 3 goals before their 11th player stepped on the pitch. The JB's, who had an indoor game scheduled immediately following the match across the parking lot, took the foot off the pedal and got worked for the next 60 minutes and were in danger of giving up points until their 4th goal which came with 5min left. Kudos to Sandzak who played with heart the whole game and deserved better. Shame on us for a lacklustre effort.

[BlazeArmy]

From League Email.

DIVISION 2 CUP: The Division 2 Cup will be limited to 16 teams: 4 from Division 2A, 4 from Division 2B, 4 from Division 2C, 2 from Division 2CAT ‘A’, and 2 from Division 2CAT ‘B’—chosen according to the standings.

16 teams is the final call. Teams will need to start really getting results for those trying to jockey into postion.

[bonefish]

The draw is next week Thursday and with a rainy weekend ahead, it looks like some teams might be getting bent due to previously missed games(Kosova, PCOV, Alemania)