Links to other sites on the Web
Well, we played a great game, but lost 0-1 in front of 3,879 fans.
The game was full of chances! That's the most frustrating part! Early on the Flash started pressuring their defense, and spent a lot of time in their end of the field. I remember shouting to their goalie after a flurry of passes in and around the penalty box, "Hey goalie! You gonna be able to handle this all night?" I thought for sure we were going to score lots. After all, they had just played the night before and lost 5-1 to the Orange County Zodiac. And, they were 0-3 on the season, Cincinnati is a newly promoted team from the D3 level, playing for their first season ever at the A-league level. (Of course, the Flash is playing at the A-league level for the first time too!)
While the goalie didn't last the whole game, he got injured and was subbed for in the second half, he and the rest of the Riverhawks had the last laugh. Our biggest problem seemed to be getting the right touch on our passes. I could see the players working together, and knowing how the passes were to be. They obviously have worked on patterns and plays in practice. But the problem was that a pass would go just in front of, or just behind the receiving player. And that was very frustrating. We had some good shots towards the goal, but they would be just wide or over the goal. Very frustrating indeed.
Our defense looked good. But it was a sign of things to come when only 31 seconds into the match the ref issued the first yellow card against us. Later in the second half we got our first red card. And it was shortly after that they scored their goal. Seemed like our guys were still trying to figure out who should be covering who with a man down, and they got a good counter attack in, and scored. I heard the shot scrape off the fingertips of our goalie Joe Cannon, and saw it go in the net. I could see Joe felt bad about it, but it was all he could do to get a touch on it at all. I'm sure he was thinking that is he could have just pushed it a little higher it might have gone over the top. But it didn't happen that way, and there was the only goal of the night.
The other noteworthy thing about the game that was very frustrating was the referee. He really succeeded in slowing things down! On the free kicks he made sure they took their time, and also didn't object to the goalies taking quite a long time in getting the ball back in play. But the worst offense was when in the second half he showed a red card to a Cincinnati player, and then proceeded to take a good five minutes or more to decide what was the right call.I never found out what was going on with that until I read the next day that the ref showed a red thinking it was the second yellow for that player, but it was only his first, so he stayed in the game. But overall, I thought it was the longest 90 minutes I've ever seen in a soccer game!
In the stands, we had a good time again. This week we got a good turn-out for the THUNDER. We had several people there early to man the table, and I got to take the big bass drum out and walk it down to our section. I bought some mallets this week, so I could bang away even louder on that thing! However, by halftime I got some pretty big blisters on my hands, so I turned over the drumming to my friend Chris Valle who came and sat with us. I manned the airhorns, along with others of the THUNDER. Flash president Yan Skwara has told me a couple of times that he really likes hearing those horns during the game, and we're more than happy to oblige!
The Flash now are supposed to go on the road for the next three games, so I don't know exactly how I'll report on them. If I find out anything interesting about the road trip I'll certainly mention it here! And hopefully we can keep attracting good crowds to the home games. Let's Go Flash!!!!!!!
-Eric Bekins-
Links to other sites on the Web
Back to Schedule and Results
Home
Get your own Free Home Page