August 25, 2013

Consider the following facts: a) today was our first real match in a couple months; b) that we were missing Oto, Hans, Lukas, Cesar, Chris and other good players; c) Tubbies beat us 5-0 in our last meeting. With all that, it was understandable that I was quite apprehensive about our "friendly" with Tubbies, who showed up with a good side, ready to put Compass in its place again.

It didn't exactly work out that way. Five minutes in, Arnaud started our scoring with a nice goal, followed 10 minutes later by Robert, who was on fire throughout the game. On two minutes after that, Arnaud threaded a nice diagonal pass right through the Tubbies defense to Laurent, scored our third goal. At the 25-minute mark, Rob got his second goal, a beautiful long shot into the right corner of the Tubbies' net.

Going into the second half, we picked up where we left off. About 3:30 minutes in, Laurent broke down the line and put a cross over to Ben, who scored our fifth goal. At the 61st minute, Ben put another cross onto Robert, who scored for a hat trick. Tubbies finally managed a goal about five minutes with a nice little chip that went under our bar. The final goal came at the 80-minute mark, when Artem scored on a very nice long shot. The final result? A 7-1 Compass win.

I wish I would have video-taped this entire game, as it was beautiful to watch. Not only did we look surprisingly fit, but we played a beautiful ground-passing game, moving the ball front and back and from wing to wing with excellent accuracy that had the Tubbies scrambling all over the place and looking very frustrated. We also fought for everything offensively and defensively and usually beat the Tubbies to the ball. As you can imagine, Danny and Sal were quite vocal in their advice to teammates by the second half.

I hate to single out players for praise because everyone played an awesome game, but have to mention a few. In addition to Robert, who was brilliant (and even did a stint on the back line), Arnaud and Laurent were the key to our midfield and were magnificent in their tight control, passing and aggressive play. We were missing a number of our normal defenders, but Steve did an outstanding job filling in in the center with David. The right-defender slot was filled by Morrison's Justin, who greatly impressed the Compass "old hands" with his skill and confidence. Fellow Morrison teammate Elliot and Justin's brother Hunter also were a big help. I'm looking forward to playing alongside these Morrison guys in the season ahead.

If this is what our pre-season warm-up looks like, I'm looking forward to the matches and tournaments in the months head. I'm trying to get us a game with Taichung City FC in the next week or two and will keep you posted.

You did an amazing job today, men...a great, great job!

GO COMPASS!

Doug