Central Park Rangers FC

Score: Ridgewood Romac 2 – 4 Red Reserves

Kanye West- What can be said about this game? An ugly win is still a win, and boy did we win ugly. The Reds Reserves came out of the blocks poorly, playing sloppy soccer. However, once Bola scored our first goal, off a heads up pass from Phil, we settled down and played long balls directly up the middle, which was a relatively successful strategy against Ridgewood Romac’s leaky defense. Big T scored our second goal with a header off a bobbled cross that was laid on a plate for him in front of goal. Oddly enough, he bent down to head the ball when it was down around his ankles. You know we use our feet in this game, right big guy?
Unfortunately, there were no notable goal celebrations to be had. Simon, we miss your presence on the reserves. Let’s see some more creativity in the next game fellas!
Danny filled in at goal for this game and we scored more than they did, so he did his job. Hats off to Danny. None of the goals they scored were egregious and he made some decent saves, came out to possess the ball when he needed to and was vocal with the defense, conducting us with confidence. Good job Danny.
In the second half Ridgewood staged a bit of a comeback, capitalizing on a free kick to score their first goal of the evening. Our play at the back became sloppy towards the end of the second half and our service from goal kicks wasn’t generating midfield possession. This allowed Romac to get back into the game and press the attack, setting up their two goals of the game. At 3-2, it looked like they could tie, but we put the game away by scoring in the final few minutes.
Greg and Charlie both had solid games, Greg winning the ball with some tough tackling in the midfield, tracking back to cover the defense and contributing some solid distribution out of the middle. Charlie did some tough tackling at the back and was a strong presence in the air, clearing a lot of their arial service from midfield, breaking up attack after attack.
On offense Bola and Ugo combined well with solid passing in the final third and good running for the long balls sent to them.

Goals: Bola x2, Big T, Ugo
Man of the Match: Kayne

KAYNE WEST – We went into the match with a game plan based on stereo-types and boy was it effective. “Get stuck in because the Greeks like to take a touch or two, so just knock them off the fucking ball quick and early” (Paraphrasing Sewards). Using this strategy, the reserves scored a few quick goals which proves one thing: stereo-types are a real time saver and completely accurate.

After some heads up long passing and crosses by the Reds, the Greeks were literally left with their heads spinning as Phil came up with two big goals. Weirdly though, after scoring his two goals and playing hard for about ten minutes, Phil then inexplicably decided his day was over and pretty much walked through the rest of the match, showing no determination, effort, or even desire to complete his hat-trick. It was truly a shameful performance on his part. To be honest, we might as well have had Rosie O’donnell on the pitch. She probably would have run harder.

Sometime as the barrage of goals was peppering the Greek nets, a sniper was targeting the field from a mysterious location. …And then tragedy struck. As Eddie was calmly explaining to one of the Greeks that going in for a studs up tackle was kind of a dick move, the sniper hit their diminutive number 10 in the face (at first). Apparently the bullet wound from the sniper’s gun then migrated down to number 10’s leg, because he went from holding his face to his leg while on the ground. We’re just lucky that the sniper didn’t get Eddie. (Eddie told the kid not to go in studs up and he inexplicably went down like he’d been shot while the ref wasn’t looking to try to get Eddie red carded, which was also a dick move. Number 10 later got red carded for lipping off the ref.).

We went into half time firmly in the lead, with the Greeks in disarray, getting chippy, yelling at us and fighting amongst themselves. Rich made the best math pun of the day during the team talk, saying “They’re coming at us from all angles”. Truly genius.

In the second half, Simon made his presence on the team known, announcing his arrival to the Reds by scoring from a header off a corner kick (that Charlie generously laid off of for Simon to run on to), then doing the best goal celebration of the season so far: wiping his brow on the corner flag. Inspired stuff Simon… welcome to CPR.

It wouldn’t be a reserves match without some posts being hit. Rich hit one on a heroic striking effort, while Phil hit one due only to his being too lazy to direct the ball into the net, which was probably so open that Rosie would have hit the target.

We’re not really sure as to the identity of the scorer of the Red’s Reserves “missing” goal. It could have been anyone really. Some say it was Bola. Some say Greg scored with a free kick. Theories abound. The once certainty is that it wasn’t Big T. If anyone wants to claim our missing goal, leave a comment and you’ll get the statistic. Just kidding, glad to have you scoring again T.

After the game, as per usual, a bunch of the reserves stayed to watch the firsts and Big T decided that in order to support our team/heckle the other teams more effectively in the future, he is going to buy the “Heckling/Ethnic Slurring” editions of Rosetta Stone language learning software. He came to this conclusion after wishing he could heckle the other team’s goalie (Charlie Brown) in Greek.

Goals:  2′-Bola, 15′ &18′- Phil, 65′-BIG T, 70′ -Simon (2nd half)

Man of the Match: Phil
Honorable Mentions: Ryan, and Simon (for the best goal celebration of the season so far).