BUSS 4- SPAL 2

It was a decent day at WSSC yesterday. The weather was good, the field was decent, and both teams had a good amount of players. On to the game...

-SPAL scored first when we were caught a bit higher up the field than we should have been. Honestly, after playing SPAL at Sahlens this Winter session, we thought they were going to try to play a possession game. Our game plan was to smother their midfield, and catch their speedy forwards with a trap game. Boy were we mistaken about their plans. Very early in the game we realized we had it all wrong when they started just bombing balls over the top to Jackson and Yapa. As I said earlier, we got caught when they played a ball over the top and our defender had a hard time while facing his own net. Jackson got the better of the physical battle and slotted it past Matt.
1-0 SPAL

-We got back into the game when Cory Carter played a ball to Rony Suazo on the right side of the 18 deep in the SPAL 3rd. Rony took a step and ripped a shot from a nearly impossibly tight angle which found the side netting.
1-1

-We attacked on a counter and Ian Martin placed a nice lob ball over the top of the LB's left shoulder. Rich Gordon, with speed I have never seen in him before, flew by the outside back and put a nice touch on the ball to volley/chip the keeper. From my angle the ball seemed to barely slide under the cross bar. A well placed hit for sure.
2-1 BUSS

-A few minutes later SPAL sent a corner in which went past everybody and to the back of the 18. Matt Grecko got the ball and I challenged him. Noticing that he had help behind him I totally expected him to drop the ball, but instead he decided to nutmeg me......yeah, not one of my prouder moments. After I picked up my jock strap, I turned to notice him sending a ball across the middle to one of his teammates who hit the ball one time and beat Daddario.
2-2

At halftime we decided to change our formation and drop to a 3 man defensive line to try to earn back possession of the game. We did and the second half was much different.

-I (playing forward now) turned the ball about 30 yards out and chipped a ball through to Pete on the left. Pete Marlette cut in and found Polo Suazo unmarked trailing back post. Polo played a nifty ball back into the middle to an oncoming Miguel Rumbo who hit the ball low one time to give us back the lead.
3-2 BUSS

-A corner kick by Miguel Rumbo found an unmarked Mike Malcolm on the back post who only had to let the ball bounce off his head and into the back of the net.
4-2 BUSS

FINAL

Props to the SPAL keeper who saved a Richie Gordon PK in the second half. He guessed right and was able to get a hand on it.

My take:
We have been struggling since the indoor session. We are still trying to find where our new additions fit into our formation. Not to take anything away from SPAL though. They are a solid, up and coming team that play well together. Jackson, and their CM Barrett were really good for them yesterday. A few more pieces and they could have something really special in SPAL land. In all honesty, I don't think we were really ever worried yesterday. Even when we went down early we felt that it was just a matter of time. The second half was much better for us after we moved some things around. We started to play BUSS possession soccer, just knocking it around. The first half felt like we were playing on a small sided field. In the second half the pitch felt twice its normal size.

The reffing was a bit suspect yesterday. There were plenty of missed calls both ways and I can definitely understand if SPAL feel like they were screwed over a couple times. We felt the same way on a few occasions. But, it is over now and we get to play Sharpshooters in the next round. Hey, at least they were scored on for the first time this season yesterday. We plan on making it a good one.