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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