NorWest United 1 – 4 YFC
Yaletown Football Club played their first away game of the 2010/11 season against NorWest United at McCartney Park in North Vancouver this past Sunday. Andrew Thompson made his debut for the club at right midfield while Antonio Rabelo was back in the side at center midfield and the ever reliable Minoru Echizenya returned to his customary right back position.
YFC started the match with the intention of avoiding the previous weekend’s slow start against Meraloma, for five minutes or so it looked a little shakey with NorWest on the ball and pressing. However the new look formation started to gel shortly after with the defence shutting things down and allowing the midfield to gain control through excellent, calm passing play. Oleg Benesch was causing problems up front with ever present support from wing players Dennis Kooij and Andrew Thompson, resulting in NorWest showing weaknesses in defence.
Andrew was pressuring relentlessly up the right flank and being consistently fouled by incredulous NorWest defenders, seemingly not understanding that upending a player is a foul. Andrew was sent in on goal at one point and clashed with their keeper in a 50-50 challenge leaving NorWest fuming over what looked a fair tackle. This was the beginning of some physical play from both sides, late challenges throughout the match and lots of chatter from NorWest players to the referee (who was excellent).
The first goal came from Dennis Kooij who won a freekick around the 20 yard mark and Antonio Rabelo stepped up to put it low around the wall into the right corner of the net. A truly excellent piece of finishing and its 0-1 for the YFC. Not too long after a smooth team goal lifted YFC to 0-2. It began from a throw-in by Brett Cove to Oleg, who carried the ball up the pitch, laid it off to Adam Jennings, who played it to Dennis left of the 18 yard box who squared it to Andrew who banged it in from 8 yards. Excellent goal!
NorWest weren’t out of it quite yet though, to their credit they fought hard to claw back a goal through an unlucky play where YFC was caught over-committing on the left side allowing them to get through on the right. Arnie Emmerson had his man marked tight but as the NorWest forward cut in front of him, Arnie’s feet were tripped up on the player’s heels resulting in a 1 on 1 with Brad Bodenhammer who had little chance at the save. NorWest 1-2.
The sense of a euphoric comeback was quickly dashed by Oleg Benesch, but the move was begun by Arnie Emmerson whose quick feet took him past a couple players from the back before sending Antonio Rabelo through on the right wing. Antonio picked up the ball and carried it to the corner flag and sent in a perfect cross that was met by the Alaskan’s right boot on the volley, a gorgeous goal tucked perfectly inside the far post, 1-3 to Yaletown before the half.
The humidity in North Vancouver, nearer to Deep Cove, was completely unexpected as the forecast was for rain that Sunday but the sun chose to show its face instead. As a result, the second half played at a significantly slower tempo as both sides began to tire. A 4th goal came eventually 5-10 minutes into the half after Will Meredith and Masa Egami entered the fray as substitutes and quickly caused headaches for NorWest. Will received the ball and played it to Oleg who turned his man from the left side of the 18, cut inside and banged it past a furious NorWest keeper. It looked easy as pie and it helped calm the boys and let them see out the game with less stress. Though that didn’t quite happen, a tiring and slightly complacent YFC began to allow more chances to NorWest particularly their center midfielder who began to cause problems after being marked tightly up til that point.
The YFC defence was more than up to the task, Peter Rossing entered to relieve some tired legs and that was that, an excellent team display, another 3 points. Stuart Trann was Man of the Match in a holding midfield role and thats back to back 4 goal matches for Yaletown. This Friday PCOV will travel to Andy Livingstone in what will be the sternest test yet for the boys, feel free to come down to watch – kickoff at 8pm!