Barça Uses Math to Win 3rd In A Row

Great Effort + Solid Team Work = Excellent Win!

The Coquitlam Metro-Ford Barça '96 team had one of their better games of the season beating a very good Abbotsford Mariners team 2-1 at Charles Best. The great effort combined with sold team-work resulted in their 3rd win in a row and their 5th on the season in the very tough U14 Select 'B' division.

Over the last two games, the Barça coaching staff has been disappointed with the effort of the Barça players and challenged them to get back to the two thing that makes them an outstanding under aged team - EFFORT and TEAM WORK. Today, they passed with flying colours!

To Abbotsford's credit, they are an outstanding under aged team that will be challenging Barça in the future. They have been having some of their promising '96s play up with their Select 'A' team but with the 'A' team having a bye this weekend, they brought them down along with one of their best '95 players for the tough match with Barça.

The first half was a battle of wills with both sets of midfielders fighting for territory and supremacy. With the constant pro-active movement of Barça's outside backs (Trevor Hallam, Anthony McKave and Matteo Gallacio), the Barça midfield of Paul Serres, Giordano Baldonero, Kyle Jones, Marchello Polisi and Ryan Mobilio was able to grasp the momentum and pin the Abby team in their end. The half ended 0-0 but the chances, time of possession and shots on goal were firmly in Barça's favour.

The second half started off much the same as Barça kept the Abby Mariners on their heels. After some good defensive work from James Lynn and Anthony Martin, Rashaun Rivers worked his way down the right side and powered his way into the penalty area and scored a deflected goal to put Barça up 1-0.

Spurred on by this much deserved lead Barça kept winning the 50/50 balls and with 15 minutes left in the game Baldonero found Rivers at the top of the box who slipped a nice ball into a onside Krsto Lulic who charged to the net only to be taken down by a Abby defender. After a 'rock, paper, scissor' contest, Polisi stepped up to put Barça ahead 2-0. Cudo's to Lulic for being a team player by stepping aside and letting Polisi to take the PK!

Barça had a few more chances to put the game out of reach with both the Mobilio boys (Ryan and Michael) finding room in the 18 yard box and coming close.

With 5 minutes left on the clock, Abby got one back when a breakdown in the Coquitlam Metro-Ford defense allowed Abby's most dangerous player in behind the defense and his centering cross came off a Barça defender past keeper Jake Sundar who, besides some foot clearances, had very little to do. One must say that the undisclosed Barça defender clinically slotted the ball into the corner of the net! ;)

It was all hands on deck for the final 5 minutes but Barça showed too much heart and character to let this slip away, pressing Abby in their own end and walked off demonstrating to all their fans that they are at least one of, if not, the best team in their age group.

Barça improve to 5-2-4 for 5th place in the U14 Select 'B' division and look forward to using this new found Math against Langley United next week in Langley.