DEA Bedford Masters 2

And the start of another season is in the bag.  We started out a bit slow, with Sportsman Field scoring the first goal when a back pass did a big Sportsman hop past Kevin and Pepperell popped it in for the easy goal.  We were back on our heels for the first 15 minutes, but started to get our rythm and last 15 minutes of the half finally saw the ball spending most of it's time in their end, although we still ended the half, Sportsman 1, DEA 0.

Control of the middle was clearly what we needed most, so Jim put us back to the patented DEA 1-5-4 "we own the middle and you can't have it" formation.  This worked well and we again were keeping the ball in their end of the field.  And then came the German show.  On a high arcing cross from the right corner German struck a good sharp header, but caught the post, with the ball bouncing out to the left side.  From the back of the field all I could see was three defenders and German racing for the ball, then from the middle of the pack of defenders it came back across the goal with just enough angle to land inside the far post.  A great job following the rebound and staying with the play.

A short while later it was German again with a nice through pass to Jim who finished it off for a two to one lead.  That lasted about 10 minutes until Pepperell tied it up with a fast breaking pass to the right side which their striker hit with a fast toe poke in stride back across the net.  A good play on their part and those are going to happen.

We kept the pressure up and Nitin did some nice work in the corner, then crossed it to Mo's chest inside the box (try not to look so suprised when it hits you next time Mo (<:), who dropped it to his feet and put it past the goalie for the lead again.

The last few minutes got hairy when Sportsman took Dave down, letting their wing cross into the box where we played some ping pong for a bit, but we cleared it out and were heading for a 2 on 1 breakaway when the whistle blew.

A good start for the season, much better that the last couple of years.  And we didn't let being down get us down, we stayed on the ball and our game and pulled it through.  At some time or other I think I saw every player on the field make a good hustling play, and we had a good rotation going, no ***ing about coming out, and tired players calling for a rest.  Let's keep it up for the next few games and then our signature second half surge should take us up to Division 3.

Thanks also to Rick for bringing the beer, we were clear winners of the third half and played through the pain so the cooler went home appropriately empty.