May 21, 2017 League 1 Ontario Match Recap: North Toronto Nitros vs Vaughan Azzurri (from League 1 Ontario website)

Match Recap: North Toronto Nitros 2 - 1 Vaughan Azzurri
05/22/2017, 3:30pm EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

North Toronto Nitros beat the defending League1 champions, Vaughan Azzurri, with a resolute 
performance in the lashing rain that finished 2-1. 

"We know how Vaughan plays," said North Toronto assistant coach, Ilya Orlov. 

"They try to play on the ground, combine and build-up, and obviously it was quite difficult 
for them and we knew it would be difficult. It was also difficult for us to play out of the 
back for the same reason, because the turf was very quick in the conditions."

"We wanted to get behind them and play in their half more, which I think we did at times, 
especially in the first half. So the weather of course had an effect on it but it turned 
out okay for us in the end."

Mirza Custovic (58') and Nikolay Saveliev (84') gave the home side the much needed firepower 
up top, while Vaughan's Tomasz Skublak (66') made it interesting with just under half 
an hour to go.

"Every game we have played pretty well but we just couldn't finish in the last two games, 
which is why we got a draw and a loss," said Orlov. 

"Today we didn't have many chances but the chances we did have we managed to finish 
so of course that helped the result." 

"Vaughan played well but they did have a few chances that they missed, and of course 
that worked in our favour. We really just needed to change our finishing rate from 
the past matches, and we did that today so it's why we got the three points." 

Vaughan finished out the match with ten men after a second yellow was dispensed 
to Jason Mills. Head coach Carmine Isacco was also ejected from the ground.

"Not a great performance from our team in general," said Vaughan assistant coach, 
Wayne Mills. "We started out slow, and didn't execute our game-plan from the start."

"We had a possession based philosophy in place today as usual, but it just didn't 
pan out. The first thirty minutes we started playing more direct and changed the way 
we played from there. We can't use the weather as an excuse, both teams had to play 
in it."

North Toronto Nitros will next play Masters FA Saints on Sunday May 27 
at University of Toronto Varsity Stadium, Toronto.

Vaughan Azzurri will next play OSU Force on Saturday May 27 
at MNP Stadium, Carleton University, Ottawa.

back to 2017 League 1 Ontario Men's index

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