Soccer In Toronto 10.23.11

By Rocket Robin Soccer In Toronto

CSL Result
Sunday October 23, 2011

Final Score
Toronto Croatia 2 York Region Shooters 0

Venue
Centennial Stadium, Etobicoke

Kickoff
7:00 pm

Highlights
7 min … TC Josip Keran GOAL
TC Tonci Pirija takes a short cornerkick from the left that has TC Daniel Niksic at 15 yards near left end line in front of crowd of players in box at 15 yards take shot that YRS goalie Adam Majer blocks but Keran on right kicks in 5 yard rebound into open net.

34 min … TC Hayden Fitzwilliams GOAL
TC Marin Vucemilovic Grgic cornerkick from left is through box for Fitzwilliams on right to kick 7 yarder into center of net.

Notes
Attendance was about 175 on this cold night in front of a mainly pro-Croatian crowd.
Toronto Croatia held the balance of play in this game.

The second half was scoreless but TC almost scored on a few counterattacks. Their offence was led by strikers Grgic and Tihomir Maletic who also took most of the cornerkicks and freekicks. In perhaps the ‘perfect’ lineup for tonight’s game and opponents, they did not make one substitution in the 90 minutes.

Antonio Ilic earned the shutout for Toronto Croatia tonight making a few key saves and having a very efficient defence of Halburto Harris, Sven Arapovic, Josip Keran, and Ainsley Deer blocking mostly everything into the box.

Shooters didn’t have their top scorer/captain in Kadian Lecky who had been Red carded in last week’s quarterfinal AFTER he had been subbed out and was sitting on the bench in that game. Although Jason DeThomasis had picked up a Yellow card in each of the quarterfinal series games, they did not prevent him from playing in tonight’s game.

Referee Justin Tasev gave a five Yellow cards tonight with four going to the Shooters but two of those were for dissent.

Best non-scoring chances were at 23 minutes when TC Tihomir Maletic rushed down the middle and the sliding goalie smothered the ball at 15 yards and Maletic jumped over him.

At 26 minutes YRS Jason DeThomasis took a 35 yard freekick down the middle that hit the bar and deflected out of the box.

35 minutes had TC Grgic blast a 30 yard shot down the middle that was caught by the flying goalie.

39 minutes had YRS Goncalo Almeida take a 30 yard cross from the left sideline that the goalie had to palm over his net. Neither team had any clear cut chances in the second half which suited Croatia just fine with them protecting their lead.

We had heard before this game started that the other finalists this year are Capital City FC who won earlier this afternoon 5-0 against Serbian White Eagles pulling away in the last 15 minutes from an otherwise close game. The game will be held Saturday at 5:00 pm at Centennial Stadium and will be carried on Rogers Community channel.