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Hachioji Park, Saturday 15th December,
A swerving, dipping, stinging, rasping 30 yard free kick from returning captain Stephen Brooke-Smith won a depleted Sala the three points in a hard-fought game against the Embassy under lights at Hachioji.
After spending weeks on the sidelines with some sort of very serious, career threatening injury, Brookie was forced to recall himself to the starting line up when only 12 Sala players made themselves available. To make matters worse he was also suffering from a bout of Saizeria induced food poisoning, to which the 300 passengers on the middle carriage of the last Sobu line train back to Tsudanuma that night can surely attest to.
Strong up front, creative down the flanks and solid at the back, the Embassy are a much improved side from the one Sala comfortably accounted for in October. Last week they recorded an impressive win against the Vags and three more points would lift them out of the relegation zone. In contrast, Sala’s performance against the Hibs last Sunday at Misato mirrored their performance in Shibuya about 36 hours earlier. It was, although not without enthusiasm, rather crude and unrefined. Any moves were fairly predictable, the decision making was poor, and the latter parts of proceedings are best forgotten (not much of a problem for Toby and Roddy). In short, no one ever looked like scoring.
Twelve became eleven for Sala early on when stalwart Guido Geisler limped off with a hamstring injury to be replaced by Masa who had declared himself only 60% fit before the match. The nimble winger announced his arrival immediately by getting himself yellow carded before touching the ball. Birthday boy Ian Jelley moved back to centre half and had a solid game in the big man’s absence.
Sala had the better of the possession in the first half and thought they’d scored the opener when Brookie’s right wing cross was headed in by Bedingfield only for referee Quentin to penalize the striker for a sly little push which wasn’t quite as sneaky as he’d thought. The Brits then had their own opportunity to take the lead just before the break when after confusion in the Sala box the ball was smashed against the crossbar by Embassy striker Steve Lidbury.
Sala’s Japanese playmaker Shigeru Chino was all set to dash off to a wedding at half time which would’ve left Sala with 10 players for the second half but a rather curt onegaishimasu from Guido convinced him to stay. And a good thing he did. Sala had enough trouble stringing more than two passes together with the full eleven players on the pitch.
Both sides looked most dangerous down the wings and it was from there that the majority of chances came. Of course, when you continuously ping balls in from the wing you need someone to get on the end of it and so down on his luck is Toby Long at the moment that if he fell into a bucket of nipples he’d probably come up slurping on his thumb. So it was no surprise that his attempt at turning in Psycho Sam Matthews’ pin-point cross with his upper thigh went the wrong side of the post. However, his creative work shortly after won Sala the foul that led to the winning goal.
Up stepped Brookie, his belly now rumbling like an active volcano, to take the free kick. With all the style and poise of the experienced actor/model he is, he cunningly deceived the Embassy keeper into thinking the shot was heading for the top right corner before unleashing an unstoppable shot over the wall and into the top left corner. “Not much you can do about that”, muttered the Embassy center half and he was pretty spot on in his assessment.
The Embassy had chances to equalize, the best of them falling to their striker wearing the number 69 shirt (Silvanho). An appropriate number for him given that he spent a lot of time around the box but didn’t look very sure what he was aiming for. Must’ve been the strands of curly hair obscuring his vision. Still, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
Sala should have made it 2-0 in the dying minutes when Dan the Bard’s inviting cross struck the wrong side of Bedingfield’s increasingly oddly shaped noggin. The striker made amends just before the final whistle by rudely kicking the ball out of the keeper’s hands for the sealer, again from a Brooke-Smith free kick that was just a bit too hot to handle.
2-0 may have been a flattering result for Sala, the only thing really separating the two sides being the quality at set pieces. No taxis so buses back to the station. The Embassy were heard to be making new years resolutions of playing total football and avoiding the drop. For Sala third place at Christmas is a platform on which to build for the rest of the season. Looks like Hibs might be hard to catch, though.
After Ian Jelley’s birthday beers Brookie celebrated his triumphant return to the side by redecorating the platform at Akihabara station. Spectacular on and off the pitch. What more can you ask for from a captain?
Report by Toblerono
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