June 12, 2017 League 1 Ontario Match Recap: Vaughan Azzurri vs Woodbridge Strikers (from League 1 Ontario website)

Match Recap: Vaughan Azzurri 2 - 0 Woodbridge Strikers
06/12/2017, 9:45am EDT
By League1 Ontario staff

Woodbridge Strikers men suffered their first loss of the season on Matchweek Seven 
after dropping a 2-0 result to derby rivals Vaughan Azzurri in a match full 
of personal battles and talking points, as well as two dismissals.

"All in all I think this was a good game for the league," said Vaughan head coach, 
Carmine Isacco. 

"The rivalry, the quality of players, it's important for the league. I think this 
raises the bar and there are a lot of teams that have invested to get better now 
because of rivalries like this, so it is important for the league." 

Vaughan were good value for the result and Isacco praised the team in post-match.

"Primarily our consistency in movement, in ball movement," he said. "We didn't 
have egos, we were very selfless today, and that was important, because if we play 
as a group it is going to be very tough to beat us." 

Joseph Di Chiara (56') and Jarek Whiteman (68') scored in the second half for 
the Azzurri, while a clean sheet by Colm Vance ensured they hosts would keep 
all three points.

"I thought we played a good first half," said Woodbridge team official 
Marco Reda. 

"We were missing a little quality and decision-making in the final third, 
which was one thing we told the players at half-time. We had a few chances 
where we broke them down to five versus three or four versus four in the final 
third and we just couldn't connect on the final pass or even on the shots."

"We made it a bit too easy on their goalkeeper. If you get a goal in the first 
half it will lift your team for the second half so if we could've made a bit 
better decisions and brought more quality to the final third we could have 
got a goal." 

"But it's always an emotional game," he added. 

"Vaughan - they respect us, we respect them but at the end of the day we want 
to beat each other, right. It's a local derby type thing. This is good 
for the league."

"This is going to happen in football matches, where there is some heat and 
some bad fouls and silly red cards, this is the game right. Our boys should 
have handled themselves better because once they got a red card we could have 
got back in the match, but that's just the way it is sometimes." 

Vaughan Azzurri will next play FC London on June 17 
at the German Canadian Club, London. 

Woodbridge Strikers will next play Windsor TFC on June 16 
at University of Windsor Stadium, Windsor.

back to 2017 League 1 Ontario Men's index

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