Barça Come Out of Gate with a Win and Tie

The Coquitlam Metro-Ford Barça '96 team have started out the 2008/09 season with a win and a tie versus Abbotsford Mariners and Langley United, respectfully, in the tough U14 Select 'B' division. Barça beat Abbotsford 4-0 followed up with a 1-1 tie with Langley this past weekend. Both games were completely dominated by Barça and the scorelines really don't reflect the flow of play during the games. In their defense, both Abbotsford and Langley are predominately made up of players the same age as the Barça boys where as the Barça boys have played almost their entire youth experience playing older players.

The Abbotsford game was completely one sided as Barça dominated from start to finish. As with the Langley game, Barça went close, hitting the post and/or crossbar on 4 separate occasions and the Abbotsford goalie made quite a few impressive saves to keep the scoreline to 4. Giordano Baldonero, Ryan Mobilio, Rashaun Rivers and Michael Mobilio scored for Barça while Jake Sundar recorded his first shutout of the year.

Langley provide a tougher opposition (with 4 older players on their roster) but the time spent in the Langley end of the field was more than enough to get the 3 points easily. Langley's goalie made at least 10 good saves and like it always happens when one team doesn't take their chances at the one end, the other team comes down the field and scored as Langley did with their first shot of the game from 25 yards out. After a half in which Barça played almost the entire half in the Langley 3rd, they came off the field at half time down 1-0.

To the boys credit, they turned up the heat and finally got the goal that they had been threatening all half when Baldonero scored his second in two games on a rebound after some nice passing midway through the second half. Langley was now wobbling but Barça's poor finishing and killer instinct continued to let them down as seconds before the final whistle, Rivers hit the post with a header that left the game 1-1 and the Barça boys feeling let down and disappointed.

No time to hang heads as Barça now turn their attention to the annual grudge match with fellow club mates CMF Bayern '95's. It should be a good one!