Soccer In Toronto 08.30.09

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Sunday August 30th, 2009

Final Score
Toronto Croatia 2, London City 0

Venue
Centennial Stadium, Etobicoke

Kickoff
8:15 pm

Highlights
14 min … City Travis Gordon pulls down Croatia Halberto Harris just inside the City box on right side. Referee Gianni Facchini awards Croatia a Penalty kick.

Harris has a back injury and is down for two minutes.

17 min … Croatia Tihomir Maletic rolls the Penalty kick wide right of the net with goalie Scott Mueller frozen in the center of the net.

56 min … Croatia (London own goal) GOAL
Croatia Tihomir Maletic cornerkick from right has Croatia Nicholas Goddard head ball from 3 yards on the left side that deflects off defender Travis Gordon at the one yard line and into the net.

63 min … Croatia Tihomir Maletic GOAL
Croatia Nicholas Goddard sends pass down middle from 60 yards and Maletic shoots 20 yarder that the goalie gets a hand to and deflects ball into the left side of the net from about 8 yards.

75 min … City RED card
Erik Elmauer earns his second Yellow card for pulling down Tihomir Maletic at the City 25 yard line on the right. (Elmauer had picked up his first at 45 minutes on a sliding tackle).

Notes
Attendance was about 125 on this cool evening with the temperature falling rapidly. Wow, and the playoff system which I’ve heard will be home and away quarter-finals and semi-finals and a one game final on subsequent weekends means they will drag on for five weeks and the season may not end until near the end of October and I wonder how cold it will be by then?

Croatia could have put this game away much sooner by scoring on the Penalty kick or at 26 minutes when Croatia Tonci Piriaja had a cross attempt from 12 yards on the right blocked by the sliding Erik Elmauer. Piriiaja gets up first and recrosses to Croatia Niko Pesa who rolled the ball wide right of the empty net from 3 yards!

Marko Culjak earned the shutout for Toronto Croatia with a few key saves. Scott Mueller was just as strong to keep City in the game for so long.

City had some good second half chances in a flurry. At 50 minutes Keith Smith got a short pass from the left and blasted a 20 yard shot that goalie Marko Culjak blocked at 15 yards. Hayden Fitzwilliams was injured on the play. Two minutes later City Kuba Waszkowski took a 30 yard blast down the center over a crowd of players and hit the bar. A minute after that player coach Andrew Loague got a pass on the left and chipped the goalie from 20 yards but the shot was just over the bar.

Toronto Croatia won and pass Serbian White Eagles for first place in the league. White Eagles had won Friday night and taken over the lead for a few days. This weekend White Eagles get a chance to pass Croatia in a Saturday game against TFC Academy and then Croatia waits until Sunday when they play North York Astros.

London City stays in 10th (last) place but gets a chance to close in on 9th place with a home game this Friday against North York Astros which was actually originally to be their home opener on May 29th but a storm had the social club that owns their home field call the game so their field wouldn’t be ruined.

Before this game, the Ontario Cup semi-final was played at this stadium and Real Toronto beat Hamilton Croatia 4-1. The Real Toronto roster lists at least six players that play for the CSL Italia Shooters. Some of them I’m sure were in the Shooters CSL game I saw on Saturday afternoon play Portugal FC. Hamilton Croatia lists some players that have played for Toronto Croatia in past years.