Mon August 14, 2016 League 1 Ontario--Toronto Skillz vs Sigma FC (from League 1 Ontario website)

Toronto Skillz Late Revival Rescues 2-2 Draw With Sigma FC 
08/16/2016, 2:45pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

It was a tale of two halves at Birchmount Stadium, Scarborough on Monday 
night as Sigma FC dominated the early period over Toronto Skillz 
following goals from Soji Olatoye (36') and Kyle Walton (64'), but Skillz 
rebounded late to rescue a point after Michael Jahshan (74') 
and Sameer Fathazada (87') strikes.

"I think what we wanted to do was keep possession of the ball more, 
keep our patience, and recognize that if we moved the players around 
the opportunity would come," said Toronto Skillz technical director, 
Jake Doodnath. "So it was mainly patience to keep the ball, 
switch play, and believe that they can be on the same field 
as this team." 

"We've had a tough season and are now starting to play the way 
we are capable of playing."

Sigma head coach Bobby Smyrniotis was not impressed with how his 
side handled the match after getting the necessary early goals.  

"I think just in the second half the game opened up and there 
was a lot of open play and counter-attacks, which I didn't think 
was the best thing because when you are up a couple goals you 
want to do a better job of managing the game," he said. 

"At the end of the day that is what we didn't do - managing the 
clock and what we needed to do to see the game out. The game 
got open a little bit and when it was open they got energetic. 
The first goal kind of came out of nowhere, and we knew then 
that it was going to be a hectic fifteen minutes where anything 
could happen."

The equalizing goal came from one of Toronto Skillz's most 
promising young players, Sameer Fathazada. 

"We know he is one of the top players in this league 
at the 19 year old bracket and he's pretty much played every 
position on the field for us," said Doodnatch. 

"We know we always have that weapon to put him up top, 
so we made that switch today and he brought a lot of energy 
to the front. Just his intensity and drive are amazing."

As is the case around the league, Sigma also had some new 
faces in the team, the academy becoming reliant on the younger 
end of the panel now that the senior players have returned 
to college or gone on professional trials. Smyrniotis pointed 
to a lack of leadership from his senior players as an element 
that affected the match outcome.

"I don't think our concentration was great," said Smyrniotis. 
"Although we are young in a number of positions in the back, 
we did have some senior players out there and I think they 
know themselves that they didn't do a great job of handling 
that last ten or fifteen minutes." 

Sigma still occupies the top position in the west division 
on 35 points from 17 matches. However, second place side 
FC London is hot on their heels with 31 points from 14 matches.

Toronto Skillz has come into the ascendancy in recent weeks 
after a tough start to the season, now occupying sixth 
position in the east division table with nine points 
from 16 matches. 

"The main challenge we had this season was to mix in our 
academy players with the ones we brought in from outside," 
explained Doodnath. "This group comes with a lot of passion, 
energy, and their training has never dropped. Even when 
they were losing almost every game we still had full 
cooperation and turnout for practices."

"They want to get better and it has been the tactical 
aspect and management of the game that we have really 
focused on teaching them," he concluded. 

"There were a lot of things that we took for granted 
at the beginning tactically, but we really have spent 
the whole season improving the players' understanding 
of that aspect of the game, and instilling a belief 
in our system."

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