Lessons to be learned: Mucche Pazze 1 – ASD Boomerang 5

Had I been a professional sports correspondent who sits in a warm spot in the stadium with his computer, I would have written a first draft of this report at half time. It would have contained words like “excellent”, “absolutely superior”, “brilliant match”. Because that is what the first half was like: we saw an excellent performance by the Emmepí who were absolutely superior on the pitch and played a brilliant match. But I am not a professional sports correspondent who sits a warm spot in the stadium. I am just the Mucche Cronista hiding under a crappy EUI umbrella at Virgin Sports, trying to ignore the pouring rain, taking notes on my loose sheets of paper. And that is why I am sitting here now in my warm kitchen, trying to find the words to tell a somewhat different story.
The first ten minutes the Mucche were like a whirlwind – absolutely devastating to the opposition’s defence. Attack after attack rolled onto the Boomerang goal (I promise not to make any jeux de mots along the lines of: no matter how often the defence kicked the ball out of the danger zone, it kept coming back like a boomerang), but already then their goalie proved to be an almost insurmountable hurdle. Almost, because after some ten minutes Sara broke through the defence line, took two steps with the ball and put it in for a well deserved one-nil lead. This was followed by another dangerous situation, which however was cleared by their defence. The Boomerang girls tried to shoot from all angles and positions, but never got anywhere near the Mucche goal. Except once. It was not even a shot, it was a long pass from left back that became quite fast on the slippery pitch and went past the stupefied Isabell in goals for the more than surprising equalizer. After that, the Mad Cows lost a bit of their superiority (also because two thirds of the magic triangle in the attack got some rest), but had another couple of chances to score. None went in however, and so the teams went into half-time with a draw.
I wish I could stop the report here. But unfortunately I have seen the whole match and therefore have to tell the whole story. Which goes as follows: both teams were off to a slow start, with nothing much happening in the first five minutes. The first thing that did happen though was the goal that turned the match on its head: a Boomerang attacker felt terribly lonely in midfield when nobody was attacking her, so she took a shot from a distance, the Mucche goalie hoped the ball would go wide, it didn’t – 1-2! Now that was a shock, and except for a shot by Mi Ah some ten minutes into the second half, the Mucche did not produce any danger in this phase of the game. The lack of organisation became also apparent to the Mister, who called a timeout to give instructions. Back on the pitch however it was back to confusion: pass, shot, goal, 1-3. Followed by the 1-4, this time after a corner. Game over.
Or not? The Emmepì tried hard to fight back, with Alessandra coming close to scoring several times. But the goal would not come, due to a lack of luck and also because of their marvellous keeper who had decided not to concede any further goals that night. We were not that lucky and kindly allowed them to score their fifth goal, again after a corner. The ref didn’t seem to give a s*** about the fact that Christel was out of the game at that moment with injury, which leads me to lesson number one to be learned tonight: if you’re injured, fall down, roll over, scream, pretend to be dying. That’s how they all do it here. Otherwise nobody will notice. Lesson number two: don’t let them take shots. Close them down. Especially on a soaking wet pitch where every ball can become extremely fast and dangerous once it touches the ground. Lesson number three: don’t panic if you concede goals. From the outside it seemed that there was a sense of panic and desperation in the team after the 1-2, and especially after the 1-3. But even then, there were still 15 minutes to go. So no need to get frenzied – keep calm, keep your concentration, keep constructing the game, and success will come.
Enough lessons for tonight. The first half is something to build on, that was excellent football, the best I have seen so far. More of that next week, plus some better weather conditions, then it’s all going to be like a Hollywood movie – high level action with a happy ending!

Jannis

The Team: Isabell – Christel – Stefania – Amy – Mi Ah – Sara (1) – Alessandra