Nuke Soccer

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Friday September 4th, 2009

Final Score
Toronto Croatia 4, St Catharines Wolves 1

Venue
Centennial Stadium, Etobicoke

Kickoff
8:00 pm

Highlights
16 min … Wolves Matthew Cain GOAL
Wolves Rudy Pikuzinski sends in through ball from Wolves 50 yard line to Cain at 40 yards who runs up middle and shoots 15 yarder into low left corner of net beyond sprawling goalie Marko Culjak.

45 min … Croatia Tihomir Maletic GOAL
TC Johnny Bustamante freekick from 25 yards on left has TC Sven Arapovic head ball in box from 10 yards from right that deflects off Maletic at 5 yards on left side of box into left side of net.

58 min … Croatia Tihomir Maletic GOAL
TC Tomislav Ples rolls pass from 25 yards on right to Maletic who shoots low 15 yard shot into left side of net beyond sprawling goalie Claudio Perri.

63 min … Croatia Tihomir Maletic GOAL
Maletic is tapped a freekick and his low blast from 15 yards while inside box is into right corner of net through charging players coming in from the right. This inside the box freekick was set up by what was considered a Wolves back pass that the goalie picked up. The referee gave out a Yellow card for someone moving in the wall before the kick. The players on the right charged in again but Maletic put the ball between them on his shot.

71 min … Wolves RED card
Geoffrey Attard earned a direct ejection for arguing a call with referee Steve DePiero within two minutes of him giving a card to a player from each team for a pushing incident.

75 min … Croatia Johnny Bustamante GOAL
Bustamante passes ball to left from middle and TC Tomislav Ples takes a hard 20 yard shot that’s blocked by the diving goalie Claudio Perri but Bustamante pounds in the rebound over the fallen goalie from 12 yards.

Notes
Attendance was about 125 on this mild evening with no real wind at all. This game was rescheduled from Sunday August 9th when the game never started because of a severe thunderstorm.

Wolves defence which was one of the stingiest during the first half of the season have really tailed off this last month letting in three goals, three goals and now four goals in their last three trips to play Toronto area teams. Wolves goalie Claudio Perri was often left on his own and his best sequence was at 22 minutes when Johnny Bustamante was centered a ball at 15 yards and Perri saved a low shot at 10 yards and followed up saving a rebound from 10 yards and covered up the ball after Niko Pesa kicked another shot from 10 yards.

Marko Culjak of Toronto Croatia had to make some important saves too. His biggest was at 19 minutes when Rudy Pikuzinski rushed in on the right and sent in a 15 yard shot that Culjak was able to palm wide left for a cornerkick. A 2-0 score at that time might have changed the whole complexion of the game. Tihomir Maletic scoring three goals was obviously the player of the game.

The game was full of fouls and referee Steve DePiero gave out plenty of Yellow cards. Fans were yelling insults at the officials. He couldn’t please them as even when he ejected the Wolves player, and the announcer said “….Referee…Red card…” some fan yelled “Referee Retard”. At 85 minutes he gave game hero Tihomir Maletic a Yellow card for diving in the Wolves box for trying to earn a Penalty kick when he barged by the goalie to get a shot away.

Wolves regular head coach James McGillivray who is serving a four game suspension told manager Armand DiFruscio who was serving as the head coach tonight that he’d be filing a FIFA report because he said the referee swore at his player, Geoffrey Attard. The referee told DiFruscio after the game that he’ll file a report for league officials that Wolves player Tony Memigas after the game swore at him and threw a water bottle.

A Croatian official was not surprised by the resignation of league commissioner Cary Kaplan the day before. The timing of the announcement was all planned ahead. I’m going to wait to I hear from other club managers from two more games this weekend before I write anything about it.

Toronto Croatia increases their lead on Serbian White Eagles with tonight’s win. White Eagles can keep pace if they win Saturday’s game against TFC Academy. Wolves have gone cold in the league and with North York Astros winning last night against London City (although we did not know that because of the late start), Astros are closing on Wolves, Portugal FC and TFC Academy for the last playoff spot.

I was going to wait until the season was over to comment but I want to thank players and club officials and from the CSL teams for helping me fill in assists on the goals to make my reports read better. Wolves players would not have been in the best mood after the game Matthew Cain gave me the name of who passed him the ball on his goal and a Croatian official waded through their crowded dressing room to survey the players of who was involved in the freekick tying goal.