Match Report IUE Calcio 7 – I Girone 2
Last Tuesday, 19/04/2016, IUE Calcio Squadra Fantastica played against I Girone at our beloved Coliseum Cerreti. It was a very special date for all EUI members since it was the 40th Anniversary of the EUI, one more reason to win the game. Squadra wanted to continue with the amazing performance of the previous 6 games were it showed an outstanding record of 5 victories and one draw. Moreover, we all wanted to reach a new record of wins-in-a-row for this season. In order to do so, the misters started with a motivational speech that we have heard for the last few games “Guys this is a very important game for us, we are playing against the team that is below us in the table, we need to win so they can not reach us and also we may climb some positions”.[1] After their speech and the warming up, we started the game with our now traditional 1-3-5-2, or to be more precise, 1-1-2-1-4-1-1 formation:
Olli
Reto
Carl Ludvig
Simon
Lian Pazzo Gabo Jonas
Lore
Ozgur
Dt. Coach Il Mago Rojas
As always, supporting and ready to start playing, a strong bench formed by: Frede, Ciaccimania, Dieter and Tore.
We all knew from the beginning that we would have to give 110% to win this match, and a lot of pressure was put on Simon, the replacement of Andrea “the bulldog” Gazzani. After the whistle of the referee, the smooth passes trained on Fridays start emerging from the boots of the IUE players, resulting in a very early goal for IUE. Our “galgo” Facchini made one of his traditional runs on the left, and did the so called “pase de la muerte–death pass” to Jonas (one of the only squadra members who can keep the running phase of “el galgo”) who scored with a beautiful touch. 1-0 for IUE calcio and the calm of a good start. However, remembering what happened in our last match, where we start wining and dominating the game but end-up needing the salvation of Ciaccigoal, the misters and our “plastic tape” captain Pazzo screamed “Well done, keep calm but focus”. So we did, squadra continued playing an elegant but effective football, and the second goal came through soon enough. A beautiful play, from the right this time, Lian passed to Lore, Lore plow the right side of the attack, centered, the goalie gave a rebound and “el galgo” Facchini was there to take advantage with a little touch over the goalie. 2-0. IUE calcio continued playing as if the game was 0-0 and creating chances. As a result, after a corner-kick of millimetric precision executed by Lore, Simon scored a beautiful header. 3-0 for squadra. One may think that we could relax, but our captain screamed “Why are you laughing?, no laughs stay focus, we have not win anything yet” and bringing his Inter fanatism he said “Some teams have lost Champions League finals after being 3-0 ahead”, which was very much celebrated by Dieter, a declared Liverpool fun.[2] Even though the score was showing a difference of three goals, I Girone continued fighting and showing a very good understanding between their forwards. They start getting close to our goal, but they were not succeeding because of the great performance of our Olli “Peter Schmeichel” Garner. However, in one free-kick the number ten put an amazing ball into the box and after a great header they were able to score their first goal. The match continued with a lot of intensity, with Girone trying to reduce our advantage and IUE calcio moving the ball and trying to take advantage of our fast wingers. After a long ball from Lud to Lore, Anguila controlled the ball and trying to dribble one of the defender the ball went to Girone box. At this point everyone was expecting the Goalkeeper to take the ball, but like a lightning, Ozgur appeared, dribble the goalie and scored the 4-1. The match continued as it was before and in one counter attack Girone was able to score the 4-2 with an amazing shot. Short after that, the first half finished.
In the half-time the misters gave again the motivational speech, with a clear message: Guys we are doing good, we have to continue what we are doing in attack but be more concentrated when we have to defend, and do not let them play easily from the back.
The second half started with a substitution, Tore replaced Lore. The game continued with the phase it had before the half-time break. But 5 minutes into the second half, I (Lian) did a bad throw in and innocently left the ball there. Alberto, our captain, started screaming like crazy “come on Lian, you cannot be so nice, do not let them play so easily, stay focus, put more attention”. He continued screaming for 3 or 4 minutes, but while I thought he was just yelling at me, he was actually preparing a secret strategy. I was very much pissed off, and wanted to show Alberto that I was focus; on the other side, Girone was not paying too much attention to me because of Alberto’s strategy to distract them. After a center from the left, the goalie gave a rebound, and I went for the ball like crazy, I dribbled one defender and shot with my left foot to score my first goal in the squadra. I went to celebrate it especially with Pazzo. Some people said that I was screaming “tomá, para vos pu%$” but I was actually telling him “gracias capitán!!”.[3]
In my memory now the goal looks more or less like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wekcez2ubNw
but actually I think it was more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx9N6QKXalw
When I scored some people said that Il Mago celebrated like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7TvtlWEtck
While saying “when am I going to score? Even Lian scores!” which I obviously do not believe it was true.
Short after my goal, I was replaced by Dieter. In one counter attack, Ozgur run into the goal and shot, the keeper hardly saved it, but Tore was ready to score, 6-2. The misters did not want to give anything for granted and they made some changes to keep the intensity. Ciaccigoal came in for Ozgur, and Frede replaced Jonas. We all knew that Girone was not going to give up. So we continued focused, and they continued pressing and playing the ball. With Girone pressing up we had the opportunity to play long balls but many times we got caught by the already known “Trampa del Offside or Offside Trap in English”[4].
Another critical moment of the match was the red card that Girone got. Nobody understood really well what happened, but in one minute one of their defenders got two yellow cards (it seems one was for insulting Tore and the other was a clear foul from behind in a goal kick). At this point Girone gave up. Squadra continued playing beautiful football, and scored another goal. After a long ball from Pazzo, Frede got the ball, mimic he was going to shoot, dribbled the goalie and scored the final goal of the game. In the end the Squadra was able to celebrate another victory with the fantastic Curva, and was able to dedicate the victory to all the EUI community in the 40th anniversary of the EUI.
After this match the words of Jorge Valdano “El fútbol es un estado de ánimo”[5] came to my mind, and I cannot agree more with him. The IUE calcio got the fourth victory in a row, the 7th match without losing, and a confidence in the way of playing that scares our future opponents. Some people attributed the high number of goals scored to the absence of our Bulldog, but I would not enter in this discussion of counterfactuals. I would say that we can now start seeing the fruits of our tough pre-season and trainings, the fact that we can win even without some of our more important players on the pitch.
This is the first time since I am playing that we score seven goals, but not only that, each goal was scored by a different player, which I think puts us very close to a Guinness record with the maximum number of players that score a goal in the same match. But we are not here for the records; we are here in our road to glory!
[1] I do not know how are the dynamics of the teams below us but it seems that are crazy, otherwise is hard to believe the claim
[2] For those of you who may not know, Milan was beating 3-0 Liverpool in the final of the 2004-2005 Champions League. But in the second half, Liverpool came back, tied the game and won by penalties, giving to Jerzey Dudek a retirement pension, or what is the same being the second goalkeeper of Real Madrid for several years.
[3] How incredible is the feeling of scoring a goal.
[4] Two links from a previous report where they masterly explain it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkZkt0_3L6s (spanish)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URzLdjXkI74 (italian)
[5] Football is a state of mind