Season 3 – U.S. Open Cup – Round 3
Brooklyn Ex-Pats vs. Screamin’ Seamen
Date: April 16th, 2003
Venue: Brooklyn Ex-Pats Arena (Brooklyn, WI)
Attendance: 6,319 (15,000)
Weather: Rain
For the 3rd round of this year’s U.S. Open Cup, we’ve drawn the Brooklyn Ex-Pats as our competition, from the sprawling metropolis of Brooklyn, Wisconsin (population 916). The two-hour bus trip has resulted in a bit of a culture shock for some of our players, as we have gone from a land of skyscrapers and six-lane highways to a place where cows outnumber cars. Indeed, one rather stubborn heffer delayed our arrival by more than ten minutes by refusing to budge from in front of the bus.
The Ex-Pats are currently leading series V.168, despite having only been formed just last month. Still, we don’t foresee having any major problems with this club, and our B-team should not have too much trouble advancing us to the 4th round of the Cup, assuming that our convoluted tactics work out how we expect them to.
Formation: 5-4-1
Starters
Keeper: #13 Darryl Read
Right Wingback: #17 Mattias Leier (defensive)
Central Defender: #20 Keith Stubbs
Central Defender: #18 Cameron McDonald
Central Defender: #21 Zarpas Lerma (offensive)
Left Wingback: #24 Christian Kvam
Inner Midfielder: #25 Paul Peralta (towards wing)
Inner Midfielder: #19 Jerry Smith
Inner Midfielder: #7 Lucian Tere (offensive)
Left Winger: #10 Olav Mauffret (offensive)
Forward: #14 Jesper Gravesen
Team Captain: #14 Jesper Gravesen
Set Pieces: #14 Jesper Gravesen
Substitutes
-Keeper: #1 Cornelius “Corny” Jernigan
-Defender: #22 Tyler Willard
-Midfielder: #6 Charlie Bautista
-Forward: #15 Forrest “Gump” Tobias
-Winger: #3 Ben McMahon
We’ve gone back to a 5-4-1 formation, looking to gain one week of full training for our defenders before we will have to run a 3-5-2 in order to advance in the cup. But we’re trying something a little different this time around with the 5-4-1. We’ll be playing with three midfielders (one towards the wing) and only one winger in the central of the field. The hope is that the extra possession afforded us by the third midfielder should keep the opposition from exploiting the while on our right side. If anything should get through the whole, we have our best wingback trainee, Mattias Leier, there to control things until help can arrive.
It started raining about an hour ago, and has shown no signs of letting up, which will hurt the play of some of our more technically-oriented players (Gravesen and Smith in particular). Lucian Tere, on the other hand, is loving every minute of it. The big Romanian plays his best when he’s able to just bowl over smaller opposition, and usually performs admirably on a wet pitch. We’ll keep an eye on him today and try to feed him the ball if he’s got a size-friendly matchup.
Match Report
PRE-GAME
6319 spectators had found their way to Brooklyn Ex-Pats Arena, despite the heavy rain.
Brooklyn tactics involved an interesting 3-5-2 combination. They fielded: Beltrán - Gabriel, Fleming, Harder - Gerber, Francoeur, Tillman, Rabella, Shepherd - Florence, Saldana.
Screamin' had chosen a strategic 5-4-1 formation. The following players had been chosen: Read - Leier, Lerma, Stubbs, Mcdonald, Kvam - Tere, Peralta, Smith, Mauffret - Gravesen.
FIRST HALF
John Harder gave his Brooklyn the lead with 1 - 0, as he successfully challenged both the guests central defenders, then placed the ball unreachably at the goaltenders right post.
There wasn´t much opportunity for rapid movements this wet day, which hindered Dom Shepherd in particular.
Screamin' seemed to suffer a certain amount of confusion about the organization of the team.
Lucian Tere came close to levelling the score in the 28:th minute, as he was set up with a through ball coming in from the left, but his shot hit the post.
Halftime score was 1 - 0. The fortyfive minutes were dominated by Brooklyn, with an impressive 57 percent possession of the ball.
SECOND HALF
During the break Screamin'´s coach went through the teams new tactics yet again.
Screamin' had obvious problems in finding their positions.
Brooklyn put themselves up 2 - 0 when Miguel Florence broke through on the right, leaving the entire defensive box behind him.
The structure of the game started to change as Brooklyn decided to pull back and meet their opponents in the defensive zone.
The referee showed Brooklyns Jay Fleming the yellow card after a particularly nasty challenge.
Due to a severely mistimed tackle,Olav Mauffret spent some on the grass writhing in agony before he could get up and continue the game.
Screamin' had a fair chance to reply after 81 minutes, due to some fine moves down the left, but in the end no one was there to put their head to the ball as it was lifted into the box.
Hayden Saldana should probably have put his team up another goal in the 87:th minute, but some great goaltending by Darryl Read kept the visitors in the game.
This part of the game had been a standoff between the teams.
POST-GAME
The most dominating Brooklyn player was without a doubt Hayden Saldana. David Gerber on the other hand, had a terrible day.
Most important Screamin' player was Keith Stubbs. Zarpas Lerma on the other hand, had a terrible day.
Final Score: Brooklyn Ex-Pats 2, Screamin’ Seamen 0
Goals
None
Cards
None
Player Ratings
Read: **
Leier: **~
Stubbs: **~
McDonald: **~
Lerma: *~
Kvam: **
Peralta: *~
Smith: **~
Tere: **
Mauffret: **
Gravesen: *~
Team Ratings
Screamin’ Seamen
-Midfield: Poor (3)
-Right Defense: Outstanding (10)
-Central Defense: Formidable (9)
-Left Defense: Passable (6)
-Right Attack: Wretched (2)
-Central Attack: Poor (3)
-Left Attack: Weak (4)
-NSI: 43
Brooklyn Ex-Pats
-Midfield: Poor (3)
-Right Defense: Weak (4)
-Central Defense: Inadequate (5)
-Left Defense: Passable (6)
-Right Attack: Inadequate (5)
-Central Attack: Inadequate (5)
-Left Attack: Inadequate (5)
-NSI: 39
Comments
The woes that seem to surround the Screamin’ Seamen continue to plague us, as we lost a match that we should have won, and have been bounced from the U.S. Open Cup much earlier than anticipated. A large share of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of Jesper Gravesen, who as team captain (weak experience, inadequate leadership) should not have allowed the play of the team to disintegrate the way it did (our experience with 5-4-1 was at passable).
I suspect that coach Brown will also be receiving quite a bit of heat this week, as his “5-4-1 alternative” formation backfired in a major way. We shall see if anything comes of that.
Other than that, I have very little to say at this time about the whole fiasco. When you’re as ticked off as I am, you’re probably best just keeping your mouth shut.
Other News
Youth pull Sam Young is heading south of the equator, as he sold earlier today for a nice tidy sum of $102,000. The purchasing club was C.A. Daedra (B. Bca.), a 4th Division side from Argentina. $93,840 of the money found its way into the club's coffers.
We would also like to welcome a new member to the growing group of Screamin’ Seamen supporters:
Plowboys (Owner: Gathis, Currently 8th place in Series V.202)
The Plowboys are from Kansas…Woohoo and Welcome!
Up Next: The one good piece of news out of all of this is that all of our defensive trainees receive training this week. Training update to be posted on Thursday evening. Stay tuned!