Sunday, March 21st, 2010
TSC 96 Elite - NASA 1:1 (1:1); goal: Amit Yadav
TSC started the game determined to make up for the lost points from last weekend. The boys took control of the match right from the kick-off and kept NASA on the edge early on. Lack of precision on the final pass and the well organized NASA defense with their on-form goalkeeper where obstacles to an early lead for our team. Especially the offside trap the NASA defense was employing, proved to be a puzzler for the TSC offense. Nearly every second attack or so was called offside and lead into a dead-end street for a number of promising plays. Despite that, there were still enough chances to score the opening goal. In the 13th. minute TSC was reminded that good play alone does not win games. One of the rare attacking attempts of NASA was intercepted on the right flank by our defense. The ball was already secured but in the attempted build-up the ball was lost again. This resulted in few seconds of chaos just outside the TSC penalty box until the ball was played back high over our back line. One of our defenders tried to clear the ball with a header but only deflected it to a NASA forward who was positioned on the right side inside our penalty box. He took the ball volley and hit it right over our goalkeeper into the net, to give NASA the lead, basically out of the blue. Our team now increased their efforts and pushed NASA back even more. A number of chances were missed and more offside positions destroyed good opportunities, so that it looked like NASA would go into halftime with a fairly flattering 1:0 advantage. In the 34. minute however Amit Yadav beat the NASA goalkeeper with a nicely curled ball, directly from a corner kick, to put his team even.
The second half was a blueprint of the first. TSC came out clearly dominating possession and creating good chances every two or three minutes. NASA was held in defense for most of the time. The only thing that was missing was to convert one of the many chances, to go ahead and win the game. As the game time dwindled away, our boys became more and more frustrated that they could not find the net. In the end NASA took a lucky tie home with them. Apart from the well functioning offside trap and a very good goalkeeper they did not show much - but their only shot on the goal was in. That was where they had an advantage over our boys who had a host of good opportunities but also scored only one goal.
THUNDER 96
Elite
