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Misato, Sunday 15th April, Life has an annoying way of crushing ones spirit underfoot, like Godzilla leaping off a tall building onto a paper bowl of trifle.
Although Sala somehow clung on to take a barely deserved three points from France, I couldn’t help thinking of the old adage: When is a win not a win?
The answer being; when you are making a return after a lengthy injury, decide to gamble on a tentative ten minute spell before half time to test the water, and end up scoring an own-goal and pulling your hamstring quite nastily, so that you are lying in disgrace and intense pain (Not to mention, intriguingly, in a state of semi-arousal) before the halftime whistle even blows. See opening sentence.
But while god was busy pissing on my parade, the rest of the team put in a decent performance early doors and pulled up the shutters to grasp a valuable three points from a desperate French side staring le relgatione (sic) in the face.
Sala certainly started brightly enough, Yusuke’s fine cross into the box causing havoc after only a little over five minutes.
From it, Toby’s downward header somehow hit his own feet, ricocheted off a French defender and came straight back to him, allowing him to smash home with relative ease. 1v0
The pattern set, Brookey put in another excellent cross which Toby made a better connection with, this time his header being blocked on the line, but the rebound fell kindly to Sala’s second favorite bard, Daniel, who had the simplest of tasks to make it two.
France came straight back into it though and Mr. Bard played a vital role at the other end, clearing off the line following a scarcely believable goal mouth scramble which should certainly have led to a French goal.
At the other end, Brookey’s break down the right, beating the offside trap, should have led to number three for Sala, but his driven cross was just too high for Toby at the back post.
Sala’s most loved bard entered the fray late in the half, and had the ignominy of having to pick the ball out of his own net minutes later.
France’s goal came from a well struck free-kick from the edge of the box. It hit the underside of the bar with the force of a striking viper and was bundled into the net by the arm of Charles who was diligently tracking his man (Into the net apparently…). No blame whatsoever…Ever! could be apportioned to the Sala man and he was generally praised for being in the right place at the right time. A few slaps on the back and a crippling hamstring injury later, the half time whistle blew.
Under advise from Giles, giddy with his sudden promotion to second in command in Clarkey’s absence, Guido forewent the usual halftime team talk and instead read an excerpt from his upcoming monograph “On the merits of the Tsukuba Express, with regards to patrons of Kinshicho and it’s environs.”
Sala went out in the second half, looking for the killer third, unfortunately they chose to search for it in their own penalty box and the air above it. It proved, needless to say, to be a fruitless search. France attacked relentlessly and Sala had to call upon Brookey and Guido to clear shots off the line. Backs to the wall stuff indeed…
On the break, Sala had a couple of chances; new boy Yoshiki’s flashing left foot volley was well saved by the keeper and Lenny hit another great southpaw strike, inches wide.
Brookey also had a fairly stonewall penalty claim turned down, but it was all irrelevant when the final whistle finally went and Sala had just about done enough.
France must have been pretty gutted, considering they had about 99.9% of the possession in the second half and a ton of pressure. My heart bleeds…really.
Long walk back to the station with one functional leg, bah humbug. Bring on rainy season.
Report by Letharghinihniho.
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