Buffalo Celtic 2 Los Chupacabras 3

Buffalo Celtic started out strong and scored within the first 3 or 4 minutes of the game. We continued to play strong for the beginning 15, maybe 20 before we lost some focus and intensity at which point L.C. became very dangerous. About 30 in a penalty kick was called against Celtic that I had two issues with. First, the ball was already out of bounce when the player went down. The Referee and AR both said that was not the case. Fair enough, I disagree but have to respect the decision. During that conversation the AR tells myself and the referee that the player dove and was not fouled (actually said our player did not touch him and he exaggerated the dive). This should be great news right, goal kick all the way....NOPE! The referee says he called a trip and its a penalty shot. Amazing but not surprising as he had a difficult two games refereeing yesterday (he called the 1888 game just before ours and had both teams in that game shaking their heads). We have been lucky through the first two games to have some really good crews working the games and can't expect perfection each week as we are all human. One of their speed demon players stepped up and hit it to my left and within reach for the save. Bad call neutralized. With about 5 left in the half a miscommunication in the middle of our defense allowed a ball to drop to one of their speedsters just inside the 18 who hit a one time rocket off of my diving body and into the side netting from close range. 1-1 halftime.

Second half started just like the first half with us taking a 2-1 lead of some great efforts by a number of Celtic players. The Los Chupacabras start to "MF" each other out on the field so things were looking up for us as we had the lead and the very talented team we were playing were infighting. But as in the week before, the lead was short lived as LC tied it about 8-10 minutes later at 2-2. During a scramble inside the 18 after a corner kick a Celtic player went to blast the ball clear but instead hit it off of an LC player causing the ball to go upper 90 (the same upper 90 as the week before) WHAT THE *&$#! I guess who ever did the satanic ritual next to the garage on Saturday night that left a real rabbits foot laying their for us was not a good luck charm after all. With about 15 to go in the game and it wide open back and forth Los Chupacabras took the lead for good with another fluke interaction that I am still unsure what happened. From what I can remember, I believed we failed to clear the ball effectively causing a pin ball type of response and the ball going far side netting. We had a number of late opportunities that just did not fall for us, unlucky.

I feel, and Los Chupacabras may have a different take on this, that we held a 55/45 or 60/40 edge is control of the game. They are a very talented team that on this night feel we should of beat. They got the well deserved W as if it was not for their consistent pressure they may not have scored. Overall, not a bad group of guys with a ton of talent and even more speed though there were some very unnecessary and unsportsmanlike comments that came from their bench when one of our players got hurt. I am not sure if all on the bench were injured, not playing players but just not needed. We look forward to hopefully being able to find a field to reschedule our Tehel cup game as we would love another chance to play LC.