Season 39

[Morgan O'Bree]

Results just in.

Champion's League, Quarter Finals, First Leg

Neudorf United [4-4-2 Flat/5-3-2 Flat] VS New Team [ND/4-4-2 Flat/4-3-1-1]



Another bullet dodged by Troll Engine which seems to be targeting a bit too much New Team lately. Facing a 4-4-2 Flat our Narrow Diamond started well but weirdly enough after a lag between 20' and 25' in which screen froze the situation was put back on par for all the first half, turning back to "normal" from the second half till the end, but not without other trolls in the way.
First thing first: despite the "light" tackle set up by Coach Mad, we had two yellow cards in between 10' and 20'. Let that alone, we were already pressuring Neudorf with Mason sending the ball too high by a hair. The right opportunity came few minutes after when Hutton alone with the keeper sees his shot deflected, and from the corner kick hardy finds Diamond on the usual scheme sending us ahead 0-1 (37'). In the second half we started on the right path and kept putting pressure on them: after about ten minutes Mason finally found the right path between the lines and this time didn't fail alone with the keeper setting the 0-2 (57'). Here ends the normal part and the troll came in: Bob Denver, on its way to be subbed due to Yellow card, gets injured 5 seconds before going out, while, in the maintime, Neudorf sets up a 5-3-2 which coach Mad suspected to be winger-dependant. So as soon as Neudorf made his 3rd sub New Team saw his 2 Mid wingers in setting the formation on a basic 4-4-2 which was holding and doing great vs the 5-3-2. But as alwais this season, the moment we exahusted substitutions (74') another of our players got injured after a bad foul (Denton, 75') and left us in 10. Nonetheless, Hutton made a miracle pass through the defense lines finding Mason ready and letting him go on 1-3 by himself (76'). We were holding back good in the final minutes when, of course, the single shoot made by them in the whole match got in fom 30 mts, setting the final score on 1-3 (82'). Benji Price, the keeper, got another 5 score, and despite what people says about Keeper's ratings, this season we took practically 95% of our goal against from shoots from far which the keeper usually holds down easily.

Scorers: J.Mason (2), Paul Diamond, M.Weber.
MoM: C. Yuma (8), New Team (??????)

Afterthoughts

- We got two cards in 10 minutes with light tackling, and now we hold 5 players which might jump the semifinal supposing we pass. Absurd but still acceptable.
-Bob Denver will be out for 2 days while Denton for 3: if we could have some free videos on Phone, we should recovery them both for the 2nd leg, but alas, it's been a week and more we got 0 fkin videos. So much for nothing, Nordeus.
-Hutton V1 and Hutton V2 seems definitive to be the top aces of this season, no matter how strong i grow Lenders and Schneider which are approaching the 7* goal. Togheter they are just unstoppable.
-****ING ENOUGH with injuries immediatly after the last sub. It's the 6th time in this season and this is starting to piss me off for good.
-Narrow Diamond still works vs the 4-4-2 but what was that lag moment? And why after it my fixed 70% favor bar got back to 50% without moving an inch for the rest of the half, despite being just New Team having chanches? Mhmhmh....
-If before one less man on pitch didn't cause any change in the match, now seemingl takes affect. My ball possession went from 65% to 54% as soon as i lost Denton.
-Keeper issue: it's a big big trouble. My main Q43 is scoring 5 and getting goal almost every shot, while the reserve scores 4-5 too, jeez.
-We can say we are in the semis as i don't see possible a flat 4-4-2 able to win 3-0 away against a Q15 better opponent...but it's Nordeus we're talking about.