Soccer In Toronto 09.20.09

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Sunday September 20th, 2009

Final Score
Serbian White Eagles 2, Toronto Croatia 1

Venue
Lamport Stadium, Toronto

Kickoff
8:00 pm

Highlights
18 min … White Eagles Kiril Dimitrov GOAL
SWE Sasa Viciknez 85 yard freekick from right has SWE Shane Lammie head ball across goalmouth from 6 yards and Dimitrov heads ball in from 5 yards white just left of post into right side of net behind goalie Marko Culjak.

35 min … Croatia Ainsley Deer GOAL
TC Braeden Krampert cross from right of box 25 yards along end line has charging Deer head in from 12 yards from left that has ball go over goalie Dan Pelc and into right side of net.

49 min … White Eagles Jonathan Hurtis GOAL
SWE Nikola Budalic strips the ball off a defender at 20 yards and passes forward for Hurtis who takes a 6 yard shot on left that squeezed over sprawling goalie on left side of net.

Notes
Attendance was about 250 White Eagles fans on the West side stands and 90 Croatia fans on the East side stands. It is already dark at game time on this mild night.

I was in the West stand press box but had less of a search from the one man on security than what I go through at BMO Field at every single TFC game.

Croatia had two good chances to tie after White Eagles took the lead. At 60 minutes, Tihomir Maletic got to a chipped pass into the SWE box and his 15 yard shot was stopped by the sprawling goalie at 6 yards. At five minutes of injury time, Croatia was allowed a freekick from 8 yards because of an SWE defender popping a kick back to his goalie and the goalie caught it. Referee Silviu Petrescu called that a back pass. It was then hard to tell with about 18 men in the box but Tomislav Ples seeing a solid wall of defenders standing on the goal line passed the ball along the 6 yard box and Tihomir Maletic got away two quick shots from even with the right post that were both blocked and the latter one being deflected over the end line for a cornerkick. With the White Eagle fans screaming for the referee to blow his whistle for the last five minutes, Maletic took a cornerkick that the White Eagles cleared for a 2 on 0 rush but Petrescu then stopped the game when they’d broken out to the SWE 30 yard line and the fans then booed the decision to stop the game. White Eagle players came over to salute the fans and the boos turned to cheers.

Since Trois-Rivieres had already clinched first place for the playoffs, this was a game to decide second and third place and of course a chance for the two old-world rivals to face off.

White Eagles have suddenly changed their coaching staff from Wednesday (they had two road game losses and a home tie in their last games). Gone are head coach Rafael Carbajal and assistant Paolo Pacione. Now in charge are head coach Dusan Prijic and assistant Igor Ciric. I ask team owner Ken Stanojevic about why he made the change. “We just didn’t like them” was his reason. Someone not connected with the team confided in me that there were complaints the team was not using enough “Serbian” players. I don’t know if that’s true but there would be no keeping forward Shane Lammie off the team as he’s the best player on their team right now.

Serbian White Eagles now play TFC Academy in a two game quarterfinal. Hard working TFCA head coach Jason Bent was in the back row of the stands taking notes. New academy coach (without portfolio?) Danny Dichio was nowhere to be seen. Toronto Croatia finishes third and draws Brampton Lions for their opponent. St Catharines Wolves had won their game against Italia Shooters 4-3 (high score for Wolves as they usually score one game or less per game) vault up to fifth place and get to play Italia Shooters for two more games. That game had finished one hour before this game started and I didn’t think I could get between the two stadiums in time but a friend arrived just at game time and had pulled it off. He said since about a third of the starters also played for Real Toronto who were playing in the Ontario Cup Final that night, the Shooters line up only had a minimum eleven players and 60 year old team official John Pacione was listed as a substitute (with some of the regulars watching from the stands in Maple in the first half before leaving for the Real game at Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan). Real Toronto ended up winning the Ontario Cup 2-1 I read the next day. The one other quarterfinal match is between first and eighth involves Trois-Rivieres Attak and Portugal FC, same first round match up as last year. Portugal FC official Isac Cambas supposedly cornered league executive director Stan Adamson during the game to complain about the Shooters lineup and the Wolves avoiding the Attak (the unbeatable home team and the huge expense of traveling to Quebec).