Soccer In Toronto 10.11.09

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Sunday October 11th, 2009

Final Score
Toronto Croatia 1, Serbian White Eagles 3

Venue
Centennial Stadium, Etobicoke

Kickoff
4:00 pm

Highlights
6 min … White Eagles Jonathan Hurtis GOAL
SWE Sasa Viciknez cornerkick from right has ball drop in box. Hurtis kicks in 5 yarder to left side of goal behind Croatia defender Ainsley Deer who tries to hook ball away while guarding left post.

56 min … Croatia Antonio Zupan GOAL
Croatia Marko Bedenkovic cornerkick from left has Croatia Ante Brkic head ball across box from 6 yards on right and charging Zupan near left post heads ball in from 5 yards into right side of net beyond goalie Dan Pelc.

68 min … White Eagles Kiril Dimitrov GOAL
SWE Sasa Viciknez low cross from left from 35 yards has SWE Jonathan Hurtis in middle miss getting to play ball and Dimitrov on right side gets ball and shoots low 20 yard shot to left side of net beyond diving goalie Sandi Matika.

81 min … White Eagles Jonathan Hurtis GOAL
SWE Kiril Dimitrov low cross from 25 yards on right has Hurtis blast low 18 yard shot into low left corner of net.

Notes
Attendance was around 500 according to photographer Tony Pavia with the crowd divided up according to him at 70% Serbian and 30% Croatia fans. Official attendance was announced at 475. The weather was cold with a strong wind from the north. Some of the players besides the goalies wore gloves. Parkas were required for anyone outside. Rival fans were separated by two pieces of a string rope running from garbage cans in the front row to the fence at the stop of the stands with pieces of duct tape as highlights so people could see. I’m sure the seven police officers were a more important reason that fans remained calm.

Referee Yusri Rudolf had a quiet game with not a lot of rough play between the two traditional rival teams. The line officials were flagging White Eagle rushes offside. I thought there were about four in a row within three minutes around the 30 minute mark. White Eagles were able to break through the defenders in the second half.

Croatia had a very short bench with only four players (actually Niko Pesa was a late write-in on their roster bringing their list up to five) listed as substitutes including a goalie. Semi-retired player/manager Tom Granic was one of those pressed into service. From a Croatian official I talked to, offensive threats Tommy Ples is injured, and Johnathan Bustamante is serving a two game suspension but would be back for the final if they get that far. Midfielder Hayden Fitzwilliams had to move up as a striker. Croatia wasn’t much of a threat on goalie Dan Pelc for long periods of this game. White Eagles rotated players into the game in the second half to always have fresh players throughout the 90 minutes (seven subs allowed in this league although one is a goalie).

White Eagles have now won four games in a row since making coaching changes in time for the Sunday September 20th final regular season game against Toronto Croatia which was a 2-1 result. They’ve since won both quarterfinal playoff games against TFC Academy and today’s semifinal game. Head coach Dubko Prijic and assistant coach Kosta Stanojevic replaced Rafael Carbajal and Paolo Pacione after White Eagles were held to a 0-0 tie against Italia Shooters and had lost two road games immediately prior to that.

This game was taped for rebroadcast on Rogers Community channel later in the day. Rogers did not broadcast yesterday afternoon’s other semi-final in Maple between Italia Shooters and Trois-Rivieres Attak that ended in a 3-3 tie. The commentators don’t get enough ‘background’ and so therefore sound clueless about why Croatia was playing so poorly. I thought I’d try to help at halftime by filling them in about the short bench but waited too long as they were just cutting back from commercials.

This was a home game for Toronto Croatia as the first of a two game series. The return game will be played at Centennial Stadium on Saturday October 17th and Croatia must be glad that each game is counted as three points in the series rather than being a total goal series with them forced to come back from a two goal deficit. If Croatia wins that game, there will be a half hour mini game and if that is tied, a penalty shootout.

Because of the immediate renovations undergoing at Lamport Stadium—that is the installation of an all weather bubble over the field, the final on October 24th will be played at BMO Field! The MLS Toronto FC will be in New York that weekend. Hey Canada’s only ‘national’ league will play at Canada’s national stadium. I’ll expect they will restrict fans to about one section of the stadium to make clean up earlier. Also I can’t see tickets being more than $12 because they’ve been pre-selling tickets for about a month now. I will miss the return leg of the series like I did yesterday’s game because TFC is finishing off their regular season schedule with home game each Saturday. I’ll look forward to the final.