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| Vultures vanquished |
While most of the clubs in our division were facing minnows in the cup we came face to face with the 13-skill back line of Vulturii in the 2nd Round first leg tie; not to mention their 13-skill forward line. We cut off the supply to their heavy-duty forwards so they had no chances all match; but it was heavy weather trying to get through the dense forest of that back line.
Last season’s cup hero emerged as hero, Rodger ‘Deadly’ Hedley scored direct from a freekick on the 84th minute, meaning we took a 1-0 advantage back to Estadio Lucifer. Before the second leg both teams had league matches to contend with.
We snuck a 1-0 win over Os Tripeiros, with an 80th minute shot pinging over their 16-skill strength backline. Two 1-0 wins a row are not to be sniffed at, but don’t inspire confidence going into the second leg of a cup-tie in which the opponent has shown they want to win; the Vultures indicating this as they played a weakened line-up in their league match.
So Estadio Lucifer lit up for the cup-tie; the Vulturii arrived as did also the media-vultures sensing a cupset. The score at half-time was 0-0 but the action was ill-distributed. Matchsticks had all the valid goal attempts whilst Vulturii had their captain injured, a disallowed goal and their best player pick up a yellow card.
Deadly did it for us again in the second half by opening the scoring, this time from a rare, open-play strike. Before we could take comfort in a two-goal cushion controversy rose its head again for the Vulturii – this time in their favour as they were awarded a penalty. They scored, despite this being their first attempt over the two legs, and the score became a rocky 2-1.
A second goal from Vulturii and they would be through on away goals. The pressure was on and all media cameras were focused on the Matchstick Men’s manager Tony Brazil. With a series of hand-gestures Brazil waved away the vultures, and inspired his side to score twice more in the last ten minutes.
“We vanquished the vultures,” relieves Tony Brazil afterwards, “because to go out at this stage of the cup would be a blow to our development plans and my lust for success. But we can expect more of the same from the media in the next cup round as we’ve been drawn against a 6th division side who’ve just beaten a 3rd division side. It’s tough, but damn exciting.”
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