The Games of Their Lives, World Cup Edition (Part One)
Abanhfleft v Barunia, Cup of Harmony 63, Krytenia (Part Five)
The score was 4-4. Who would have believed it? This was turning into an absolute goalfest now, no denying it. After having to claw their way back from one-goal deficits three consecutive times, Abanhfleft finally managed to secure the lead in thr 64th minute, only for Miguel Manzana's second goal to cancel out that lead fourteen minutes from the end of regulation time. Things were now absolutely chaotic. Fans from both sides were now growing a little afraid of what the next fourteen minutes would bring. On the whole though, things were now looking up for the Barunians while things were about to head for hell in a handbasket.
Some of us present in that stadium on that day (yours truly being one of them) were qualified to notice the warning signs. After holding the momentum for so long, Barunia weren't keen in losing it for the ten or so minutes that Abanhfleft equalized for the third time and then took the lead so when the momentum shifted to them once again, they never looked like they were going to give it up easily or even after a very intense fight that would only make sense in movies and not real life. But since this is real life, there's not much that the Lady Revolutionaries can do to stop Barunia from regaining that momentum and then keeping it to themselves.
Ah, now here comes the penultimate moment which will forever define this game in the hearts and minds of the Fleftic faithful. We have now come to the point in the game where Lisa Collins-Holzknecht stepped onto the pitch in place of the largely ineffectual Martin Pike. It was a move that made sense to everyone. Miguel Manzana already has two goals under his belt just for this game while his strike partner Pike has barely seemed to touch the ball today, going invisible for large periods. It seemed as if it was only eighty minutes into the game that the Barunian coaching staff realized that Pike was there and that was why it took them so long to replace Pike with Collins-Holzknecht. It was a wise move at the time, a substitution that made sense.
Oh, how the Suns were going to be rewarded for that move.
Barunia had already fired warning shots across Abanhfleft's bow even before the introduction of Collins-Holzknecht, but it was only after the Coral Cougars forward arrived that those warning shots went from blank rounds to live ones. One need only look at the rocket that she fired at the goal to know that things were about to get really, really serious, and it was also a taste of what was to come.
"You should have seen the look on my face when Collins-Holzknecht let loose with that belter," Lady Revolutionaries goalkeeper Victoria Carter said to me once we had reached this part of the interview. "The girl has a propensity for striking from long range, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't do tap-ins as well as assist her teammates. Players like her keep you on edge all the time because you're trying to predict what they're going to do next and you're hoping that your hunch or your gut instinct gets it right because if you don't, you know that it's going to be a goal. And players like Collins-Holzknecht also help their teammates out in their own special way. Because she keeps the defense on our toes because of her unpredictability, sometimes more than one player has to mark her, but taking away even just one player from their respective marker could very well open up space for that player or another one to creep in and grab a goal, like real smash and grab stuff."
"Say what you will about Barunia, but if they had scored right then and there, they would have totally and absolutely deserved it," Claire Osgood, another player who was about to play a big part in the coming goal, said. "They're really fighting to put themselves up and then keep themselves up. Like we've said before, if you score one goal then they'll just score two or even more. And you know that they can score goals from anywhere. That's the thing about them; you never know who among them can score until you have to pick the ball up from the back of the net. It's an absolute nightmare, defensively speaking."
With only minutes remaining before the end of the ninety minutes plus stoppage time, the pressure on Abanhfleft now seemed to be to hold out for the draw and hopefully get something out of extra time. Barunia, for their part, weren't content with the draw because they knew that they had at least one goal more left in them, with the possibility of more still a little bit feasible. And it showed in their gameplay. They were pushing up the field, restricting Abanhfleft within their own half and even with their own defensive third. No Fleftic player had a sniff at the ball or even the Barunian half of the pitch and that was how the Suns eventually got their inevitable fifth goal.
"It's their specialty, confusing the defense into committing into something when they're actually going to do something else," Osgood said. "And that was exactly what happened. The Barunians got numbers in the box and Collins-Holzknecht looked like she was thinking about pinging in a cross. Then she cuts inside like one of those guys, what was his name, Robin or Robben, and boom! Goal!"
A clip of the moment when Collins-Holzknecht scores her goal against Abanhfleft begins to play. As Osgood describes, at least two sky blue shirts are in the box while Collins-Holzknecht loiters just outside the box with the ball at her feet. She slows down, allowing Osgood, who is defending her, some time to slow down and stand her ground against Collins-Holzknecht. Collins-Holzknecht looks at her options and then she takes the ball and decides to go it alone by cutting into the middle from the right side. Osgood is put on the back foot and forced to recalibrate her stance just so she can catch up. But she is too late to do anything except swing out a leg in an attempt to block the shot. Victoria Carter is caught similarly flat-footed but she is at least able to raise an arm at the ball but the force of Collins-Holzknecht's kick is such that there isn't much that the Xemlice Rovers Ladies goalkeeper can do except alter the ball's flight path even as it remains straight and true to the back of the net.
"There's nothing really that any of us could have done against that," Osgood conceded as she watched the clip. "Not even probably Mandy Warren could have saved it even if she went all goalkeeper on us again and slapped the ball away. But as I've already said, that goal was all that Barunia deserve for all the pressure they put us in."
Surely it was game over for Abanhfleft now, what with Lisa Collins-Holzknecht's 89th minute goal verily the difference between the Suns and the Lady Revolutionaries. Yes, the fourth official is indicating that there will be five minutes of added time to account for Lillian Prescott's injury, but surely that isn't enough time for Abanhfleft to recover from even a one-goal deficit against a Barunia side that seems like they will score another goal for every goal that Abanhfleft does turn in, is it? Cecilia Johnson details the rest.
"Five minutes of stoppage time. Everyone knows what everyone else was thinking: is that enough time to score a goal and then defend against Barunia?" Johnson related to me. "We know that Barunia doesn't surrender possession easily; some of our tackles were lucky to even make contact with the player, let alone the ball; that was how greedy they were with the ball. Well, maybe greedy isn't the best word in context but you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, we wanted to equalize once again, of course, but we also had to go about it smartly. Kasper was telling us to go all out, like throw-the-kitchen-sink-at-em all-out. But we were also wary of getting hit on the counter so we didn't go as all-out as Kasper would have wanted. We were still probably holding out on nicking a lucky break and then hoping for the best come what may. So when Barunia fired a shot at Vicky that went over and out for a goal kick, everyone in the outfield were kind of standing around wondering what Vicky would do. Would she play it short and help us build up from the back or will she go long and hope for the best? Well, guess what, she went long, and I was the only one who realized it."
The clip of Cecilia Johnson's last-ditch attempt to force extra time against Barunia begins to play. Victoria Carter launches a long goal kick to which Johnson reacts quickest. She manages to get past two Barunian players as she runs to meet the ball's trajectory and when she gets there, she controls the ball with a simple flick of the foot. Now that she has the ball under control and at her feet, Johnson makes a run for the Barunian goal. The Barunian keeper initially tries to stand his ground but then he decides that maybe rushing for Johnson may be the better option. It turns out almost to be a fatal mistake (note the use of the word "almost") as Johnson simply steps aside and motors on, now with an empty goal at her mercy. This is a shot which Cecilia Johnson has taken many times for her club and she was now going to do the same for her country. She aims for the top left corner and lets fly, expecting the back of the net to bulge from the impact of the ball. But, much to her horror, the ball smacks right onto the crossbar and back onto the field, right into the most grateful hands of the Barunian keeper. And even as she is still absorbing the magnitude of her miss, CeCe Johnson can only kneel down on the grass with her hands over her mouth opened by shock.
"It's just a horrible sinking feeling, watching what could have been and should have been the fifth equalizing goal of the game kiss the bar and simply not end up in the goal," Johnson said as she finished watching the clip. "You watch the end of the game and after all that effort--four goals, Malik! Four goals!--it was all for nothing in the end. Almost all of us were legitimately crying by the end of the game. It's just so heartbreaking. I know I was crying my heart out even when some of the older girls went over to us and told us that it was not the end of the world. But you have to understand it from my perspective. I had the biggest chance to keep the team alive in the Cup of Harmony and I blew it spectacularly. I still have nightmares about it. I still get some stick, some abuse from the fans because of it. Of course, the years passing have mellowed the sting somewhat, but the pain's still there. I can still feel it."
And that brings to an end the first part of Abanhfleft's most stunning and memorable games in its campaigns for World Cup glory. Next month, we will explore the reactions and feelings behind Abanhfleft's 4-4 draw with Pasarga in the qualifiers for the 76th World Cup. Until then, this is Malik Qazizadah, and you're watching The Games of Their Lives.
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