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| Defensive masterclass |
Parkway Forest FC came up against their bête-noire FC LULE on Saturday in a clash that would see the winner go first in Div 1a at this early point in the season.
Forest had dropped all six matches against LULE, who on paper are the strongest team in the division. Moreover, in many of the matches, Forest manager codespyder had been absolutely outfoxed tactically.
Going into the match, codespyder decided to try something different. After all, trying the same 4-5-1 or 3-5-2 against the LULE midfield juggernaut had gotten nowhere. What's the worst that a new formation would do, apart from meet the status quo of yet another loss?
Therefore, codespyder opted to bypass the opposition midfield directly and shut the door on the strong offense by setting up in a rarely-seen 5-2-3. LULE had successfully marked the Forest midfield out of the game in recent matches and Forest decided to go the direct route instead, with the defense doing double-duty of killing the LULE attacks and feeding the ferocious striking trident that had bagged 16 goals in all competitions already.
The result... was not one for the neutral, as both sides finished a tepid first half with no chances either way. It certainly didn't help that Forest lost striker Aroldo Coppola to a knock midway through. The second half was only a bit more lively. Each team had only one goal attempt, but whereas LULE had theirs brilliantly saved by new Forest keeper Mauro Areosa, Forest striker Callisto Loureiro buried their chance with 15 mins to spare.
Therefore, the story was written by the defence on both teams. However, Forest's back five each produced an unprecedented performance, besting anything they ever did before. And it will be this defence, which has produced four consecutive clean sheets in the league, that holds the key to a promotion to the top flight.
There are still nine extremely difficult games to go, but with the team sitting in a good position early on, there is hope that the dream may yet come true.
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