Suspected Usually

A game review for The Usual Suspects match on Thursday July 14, 2006.

It was The Usual Suspects third game of indoor soccer for the season last night. We were coming up against a team that we had never played before in La La Land. Although we had never played this team it is a Division 1 match so we could expect it to be tough.

The match started off at a lightning hot pace. The Land went off like a bullet and was all out attack. At this point I thought it was going to be an extremely though game. They had many shots but I managed to save a few and our defense was tight (like a tiger). It was in this stage that I had my personal highlight for the game. As keeper (like always) I had to make a triple save (three in a row) while they had two players going up against me. I was very pleased to have made those saves and you could say that I turkey slapped all over them with my work.

So after a tense first ten minutes the game really opened up. We started to get a lot more of the ball and pushed forward in waves of good attacking football. It was then after a few great attempts that we broke through for the first goal of the contest. Matt latched onto a through ball and slotted it to the left of the keeper with deadly accuracy. It was Usual Suspects 1, La La Land 0.

A few minutes later we had a free kick from about center. The ball was played in, but well defended by The Land and came straight back out. However, as their whole team streamed out of defense to go attacking Brodie stayed up forward and when the ball was quickly won back he was in the perfect position to take the pass and slot it home. He even nutmegged the keeper to make it even more special. We were now up by two goals. The third came soon after with Brodie boxed in on the left of the field he deftly used his left foot and bamboozled the opposition keeper. A well taken shot and one for his scrapbook.
Half-time came and it was 3-0 to The Usual Suspects.

The second half was whitewash, with us pretty much dominating play and the possession. One of there best chances came early but a save by my arse prevented the goal. A third goal to Brodie to complete his hat-trick followed. It was only his second came back after major double wrist surgery and followed his two goals last week, continuing a very impressive return to top flight football.

We scored four more goals in the match, with another to Matt and an extremely impressive second half hat-trick to Mark. It must be noted that Marko created a lot of play and was unlucky not bag a goal himself. One of Mark’s goals was also a signature Usual Suspects goal. It was where we brought the ball back deep into defense, pulling the opposition with us. The ball was then played back to me in goal and I quickly passed it to Mark on the left hand side, bouncing it off the net, which then allowed him to one-timer it into the top left corner of the goal. A total trademark goal for our team. These were once the kind of goals that Alex would get, but now that he has gone Mark has really stepped up taken the role unto his own.

The best part of the game for me was not conceding a goal for the whole match, that’s right, I got a clean sheet. These are very rare in indoor soccer and I was very pleased to come away with one, only my seventh clean sheet in 222 games.

Final scores: Usual Suspects 8 (Brodie 3, Mark 3, Matt 2) – La La Land 0.

Side note: that game review above was the first one that I have done in probably more than 3 years, and it felt pretty good. It took a bit of effort so I don’t know if I will do it every week but I will do it occasionally. Also I will be creating a new website for the team and when it is completed I will let people know. If the ideas in my head come together it should be pretty good, but don’t hold your breath.

This has been a presentation of Dean’s Wide World of Sports.