May 5, 2013

Hi Compass Men,

Well, it's been a long time in coming, but Compass FC has once again been crowned Cup Champions!! It was a very long second tournament day but we ended strong, defeating Tainan Phoenix 3-1 in a 40-minute final to become the 2013 Taiwan Spring Cup Champions.

As noted yesterday, we ended up first in our group on Saturday and showed up Sunday for our noon match against the Taipei Eagles. To put it mildly, this first game was not an auspicious start to our Cup campaign. Due to a last-minute shortage of linesmen, Malachi agreed to help out in this match and drew the strong ire of the Nigerians on a foul-in-the-box call. In the showdown that followed, the entire Nigerian bench, including managers, waterboys, half-drunk fans, etc., ran aross the pitch to confront the officiating staff. The showdown lasted about 10 minutes, throwing the game out of sync. In the end, it ended 0-0, leading to a best-of-3 PK shoot-out that went back and forth to about 5 PKs. Thankfully, two saves by Gary helped seal the Compass win.

Following this unpleasant experience, we had plenty of time--about 4 hours--to ponder our next semi-final match agains the Kaohsiung Pacers, who defeated their cross-town rivals Massive to meet us. The Pacers were fired up before the game but Compass soon put them in their place at the 6:50-minute mark, after Ben (with a bit of help from a confused Pacers' keeper and defenders) tipped in a cross by Ross. At 14 minutes, Ben sealed our win and guaranteed our place in the final with a nice break-away goal. Unfortunately, Cesar pulled a thigh muscle in this match, leaving us with a couple subs and one forward short. Fortunately, he was later ably replaced up front with the versatile Robert, who played defense, midfield and forward in his comeback weekend.

We had a to wait another couple games to decide who our opponent would be, decided by an Animals vs. Phoenix match that had Compass favoring Tainan as our future opponent. Tainan pulled off a PK shoot-out win.

It was dark by the time we had our 2 x 20-minute halfs final, preceded by a number of other matches that saw Tubbies 1 team fail to qualify within the top four places for the Cup. Tubbies 2 team did make it to the Plate final but lost to JFC in a PK shoot-out.

Tainan Phoenix has been a strong long-time opponent of Compass and we approached the game with some caution. However, we quickly settled down and spent most of the first half in Tainan's third of the pitch. At 6:23 minutes, Oto took a powerful indirect kick that ricochetted out to a charging Hans, who put it in. Oto further contributed at the 16-minute mark, when he scored in a beautiful break-away sprint on the Tainan goal.

Not too long into the second half, Tainan put some fear into Compass when defender Leigh charged in on a corner kick and scored an nice header, reinvigorating the Phoenix with new confidence. However, about half-way through the second half, Ross did a throw-in to Oto, who put it to Ben, who scored our third goal, giving us a two-point lead we hung onto for the Cup. A Eugene injury meant that by the end we had only one sub left on the sideline for Compass.

One of the things I liked about this tourney was the fact that everyone made a strong contribution to the team. Once again, what might not be considered our "best team" came together in typical Compass fashion to play good football well together and see this through to the end. To get there, we had to get past a series of excellent teams without a single team that could be considered "easy" to play.

Afterward, a number of us met up at a BBQ place Robert inroduced us to for food and drinks. Enjoy our victory, guys. I truly believe we deserve it!

Doug