Friday September 2, 1994

Date: 09-03-94 (08:00)              Number: 29158 of 29225 (Refer# NONE)
  To: ALL
From: KBUTLER@SFU.CA
Subj: [T/R] Vancouver 86ers vs Toronto
Read: (N/A)                         Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
Conf: U-SOCCER (4241)            Read Type: TEXT SCAN (+)

-----------------------------------------
Vancouver     1         Toronto       0
Sibiya 82
Att: 4498.

Vancouver: Dolan; Kim, Millar, McKinty, Rattee; Dodd, Easton, Evans,
Valentine; Mobilio (Sibiya), Munson (Mitchell).
Toronto: Onstad; Sarantopoulos, Kraemer, Lopez; Ianiero, Nocita, Sullivan,
Majcher, DiFlorio; Dolumbo (Walker), Crljen (Golen).
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This night began with cloud and ended with rain, through which your intrepid
reporter had to cycle home (and is therefore thoroughly drenched). The game,
while never a classic, turned out a pleasant enough way to spend a Friday
night, with the home side just doing enough to win.

The 86ers, still plagued with injuries, fielded a reshuffled side, with
full-back Tom Kim rejoining the team and centre-back Todd Rattee joining
from UBC, and forward Sipho Sibiya (who was to make a dramatic entrance) on
the bench. Toronto's starting lineup featured (as far as I can make out) 10
former CSLers (the name Dolumbo, which may well be wrong, was new to me),
from Hamilton and North York as well as the Blizzard (Toronto played in
North York Rocket blue tonight, though without the big coffee company ad on
their jerseys).

The game quickly settled into a pattern, with both teams showing why they
are struggling: missed passes and misunderstandings aplenty. The 86ers had
somewhat the better of the play, though without threatening much in a quiet
first half. The visitors' best chance came on a looping header from
DiFlorio, after a Nocita cross, though Dolan had only to watch the dropping
ball carefully, while the 86ers came close through Mobilio, whose shot went
just wide after Easton tapped a free kick to him, and from Evans, whose rare
shot was a yard or so high after good retrieving work by Kim.

The second half began with a lot of stoppages (from a generally
whistle-happy referee) and yellow cards for McKinty and Lopez, apparently in
both cases for speaking out of turn. Valentine featured in two incidents
around the hour mark, first making a good run into the box and apparently
being checked off the ball (no call from the referee), and almost
immediately making another similar run, this time trying to pass to a
teammate without success. After this, there were chances at both ends.
Dodd ran down the left, cut inside and produced a dipping shot that fell
wide; a nice passing play finished at the feet of Ianiero whose cross-shot
was handled by Dolan; Mitchell got open on the edge of the box and fired in
a firm shot which Onstad caught while diving. Nonetheless, it still looked
like the 0-0 game it was. Both sides changed both their forwards, and,
curiously, both teams decided in the 62nd minute to take off their number
17's, Munson for Vancouver and Crljen for Toronto, both of whom had had
quiet games. The crucial substitution came in the 75th minute, though.
Mobilio, who had seen a little of the ball but had not done much with it,
gave way to the newcomer Sipho Sibiya. The substitute made some
useful-looking runs without getting much of a chance to show what he could
do, but that didn't last long. In the 82nd minute, Valentine got free on the
right, found Mitchell on the edge of the box in the centre, who in turn
passed to Sibiya who had found space intelligently. Sibiya controlled the
ball, looked up, and finished very coolly to give the 86ers the lead. Your
reporter was out of his seat almost before the ball hit the net....

It looked for a moment as if the 86ers would hang on to the lead
comfortably, but in the end there were a couple of alarms. Nocita got in
behind the defence, having his shirt tugged in the process, before sending a
shot across goal and wide (one assumes advantage had been given), and then
Majcher had the Rockets' best chance of the game, getting open on the right
and firing a firm shot which Dolan blocked alertly. And that was that -- the
86ers had a much-needed win to keep their slender playoff hopes alive,
without playing convincingly well, and the Rockets showed that they need a
dangerous forward (someone like Paul Peschisolido would do nicely :-)) to be
any sort of threat in this league.

Attendance tonight was about 250 below average, perhaps because of the
weather or the not-so-attractive opposition. (The 86ers' attendances had
thus far varied very little from the average. Next up for the 86ers on this
Eastern homestand (if you see what I mean) are the Fort Lauderdale Strikers,
followed by the successful Impact from Montreal, who beat the LA Salsa
tonight 1-0, thanks to a goal by Lloyd Barker.

Your reporter has now dried out nicely :-)

The table now resembles the following. (A thought: every time the Vancouver
Sun has printed the league table, they have had to spend a column-inch or so
(more space than the table itself needs!) explaining the point-scoring.
3-1-0, anybody??)

                  Games   Points
Seattle             14      87
Montreal            14      72
Los Angeles         15      72
Vancouver           15      54
Colorado            13      52
Toronto             15      42
Fort Lauderdale     12      31

Cheers,
Ken.
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Ken Butler                          |     at    kbutler@sfu.ca
Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics |     or    butler@cs.sfu.ca
Simon Fraser University             |---------------------------------
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6       | Dydw i ddim yn siarad Cymraeg.
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