Out of nowhere this normally defensively compact and offensively struggling team has had a fire lit under them offensively and defensively have neglected their duties somewhat. It all started with a 5-5 draw against last place side Hafamarimet who currently sit on one point from said draw is not a good look. While the play of Adelle Benton and her pending sentence to the bench seems to have lit a fire under Zoe Kinney as she scored a brace, had an assist, and was a large contributor in the offense the same cannot be said for the defense.
I'll put it this way, in five games Hafamarimet had scored a grand total of one goal. After their 6th game which was against us they had scored six goals, either there was a mistake in their goal count or we just allowed five goals to them. I don't want to hear the excuses of it being a trap game and while the fact that Netop are playing so well and are even in a top four position is amazing it just makes getting the three points against the lower ranked teams more important.
However the more important game and the game I would prefer to talk about is our 4-3 win against Saint-Domingue which was the game after the 5-5 draw that we should never speak of again. In the first half of the game against second place Saint-Domingue the pot 8 side in the group (crazy right?) we appeared to take out our anger from the horrendous 5-5 draw. It was the captain Teddy Riggs who started off the first half bombardment with two goals in the first 12 minutes scoring in the 7th and in the 12th.
While his first goal would be unassisted the second one was off of a Savanna Park pass but the result was the same nonetheless and we were up 2-0 just like that. Not content with just the two goal lead it would be Max Holder who made it 3-0 with the 19 year old making a brillant cut to receive the ball from Kinney who continued her great run of form in this play.
However just a few minutes later we received word that Heather Burrows would have to come out with a knee injury and while it has proved to not be serious (she will play our next match against Sharktail) it still hurt. However we said hey we are up 3-0 even though our best defender is out it won't make too much of a difference; these people looked to be proved correct when Marcus Hussel her replacement scored a header off of Holder's cross in the 43rd minute to give us the stunning 4-0 lead.
Netop just needed to defend well for 45 minutes, we didn't need to even counter up 4-0 and we would get a statement win to put us into second of the Group, right? However The Friends decided it was time to be nice and do what friends do which is give away goals when up 4-0. The half actually started well with a Riggs chance but a good save from Binet denied him. To his credit Binet actually made some good saves and his defense let him down constantly however he could have been better.
It wasn't long after this early chance however that Saint-Domingue started to creep back into the game slowly but surely. Josep Carpeña was the first to make it a still comfortable 4-1 lead in the 53rd and instead of really being upset about it being a closer game Howells was really just upset about his clean sheet going down the drain. A goal from defender Alfredo Cotilla just nine minutes later would worry us some more but we seemed to be doing okay and our defense was cleaner as the game had grown close again.
A Diego Palacio in the 80th minute made it look like our worst fears were coming true but our defense would hold them off after a brillant charge that almost got them a big point. However Netop would hold on to secure a very important three points in our unlikely hunt for qualification.
Group 5 Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
1 Savojarna 7 5 1 1 13 6 +7 16
2 Netop 7 4 1 2 19 16 +3 13
3 Saint-Domingue 7 4 0 3 18 12 +6 12
4 Sharktail 7 4 0 3 14 13 +1 12
5 Zwangzug 7 3 2 2 12 9 +3 11
6 Ancherion 7 3 2 2 19 16 +3 11
7 Abanhfleft 7 3 2 2 12 9 +3 11
8 Chartistan 7 2 1 4 8 12 −4 7
9 Koniglich Wasserstein 7 1 2 4 12 20 −8 5
10 Hafamarimet 7 0 1 6 7 21 −14 1
The win puts us into 2nd place just behind pot two team Savojarna who are three points clear. In third is the team we just beat who have been a real surprise from pot seven so far, and behind them are Sharktail who despite a horrid start have rebounded nicely. Next up for us is the red hot Sharktail team and a win or a draw in that match is really what we are looking for.
