Saturday September 29th, 2001.
My thoughts
and observations on the Wizards-Wolves controversy
by Mike D
OK, here are the facts as I know them (in chronological
order)...
1) I missed the first 9 minutes of the match because I got
stuck behind a farm tractor on Carp Road, I really wish the Wizards' stadium
wasn't so far from the city centre (this has nothing to do with the controversy,
I just wanted to mention it because it annoyed me)
2) From what I saw of
the first half it seemed like the Wizards were playing hard and trying to win,
this leads me to believe that the Wizards didn't learn the St. Catharines was
using inelligible players until the half, St. Catharines was playing very well
and I would say they were the better team in the first half (although Ottawa was
not out of the game by any means)
3) St. Catharines took the lead at
roughly the 30 minute mark off a beautiful free kick by a midfielder called
McKay from about 25 yards out. He picked out the top corner perfectly and
Goddard had no chance.
4) Ottawa made 3 substitutions at the start of the
second half (you're allowed 5 in the CPSL), this was the first clue that
something was up because they replaced some of their better players
(particularly central midfielder Al Popazzi) with some of their more marginal
players, it seemed like a strange thing to do when you're 1-0 down
5)
about 10 or 15 minute into the second half, Ottawa subbed off leading scorer
Kevin Nelson, I was utterly shocked because it seemed like an utterly senseless
thing to do, all things considered Nelson was having a decent match, by this
time it was also clear that the Wizards were not playing with much drive or
energy in the second half so I rationalized the substitution by figuring that it
had been done to shake up the team
6) about 15 minutes from full time,
*Ottawa subbed of the goalkeeper*, now I was completely stunned, I couldn't
understand why Ottawa would waste its last substituton when they were down
1-0
7) with about 5 minutes to go, the fans in my section were starting
to get very restless because Ottawa hadn't shown any life in the entire second
half, amazingly Ottawa was not pushing forward even though they needed a tying
goal, somebody yelled at Ottawa sweeper Kwame Talemaque and he yelled back with
what I thought was "they've won it already", this pissed me off, I was annoyed
that Kwame seemed to have given up hope even though Ottawa was only down a goal
but, in retrospect, I think I misheard him and he was actually saying "we've won
it already"
8) Ottawa immediately lodged a protest at full time, I
couldn't hear what was going on because I was on the other side of the pitch but
there was a big huddle involving some league officials, the Ottawa coaching
staff and several St. Catharines coaches and players, it was obvious that the
discussion wasn't going St. Catharines' way because many of their players were
visibly agitated and one guy looked like he wanted to fight one of the Ottawa
players (who took the high road and didn't stoop to that level)
9) I had
to leave before the situation was resolved and only found out that Ottawa had
won when I read Richard's post
The obvious theory is that Ottawa found
out about the inelligible players at half time and decided to rest some of their
better players for tomorrow's final and just play out the second half using
their bench. They probably didn't even want to tie the match because that would
have forced extra time, which would have tired their players further. I think
this explains why they didn't really push forward even though they were
down.
Mike D
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