July 15, 2003
Three Utah teams are competing this week at the Schwan's USA Cup in Blaine, Minnesota. The teams competing from Utah are: U13B WW Sidekixx, U16G Warriors SC, and U17B Utah Rangers. With 800 teams competing from almost every state and over 25 countries, the USA Cup is one of the largest youth soccer tournaments.
Dave Woolley of the Utah Rangers sent a report of Tuesday's exciting match:
Tuesday, July 15th the U17 Utah Rangers 86 (to be U18 beginning August
1st) played game two in pool play of group "E" of the cup division (the
premiere division of the U17 age group) in a 5:45 pm central time game against FMI
from Brookfield Wisconsin--a suburb of Milwaukee, WI. Game two in pool play was a war. There were body
parts flying. The referee was an English Football League Referee---not the
English Football Association (the amateur referees) but an FL referee, flown
over here for the tournament. His two assistants were Irish and suffice it
to say that after an FMI player and Landon Flack went in hard for a tackle
and both players complained to the referee they'd been fouled, the Referee
told them to put theirs "hand bags" away and stop playing like
girls---which he translated for them after the game to mean, "boys, when two players are
hitting shoulder to shoulder, that's not a foul and in England we say, put
away the handbags and stop playing like a girl." You gotta love the
English.
The result was: hardly any fouls called. This same game, played with a
Utah Official, would result in seven red cards, a plethora of yellows, easily
three pks, but here, there were two free kicks awarded during the entire
match.
Now for the fun stuff: The first half was a physical game with FMI coming out very HARD and
softening up the Rangers with hard tackles, winning the ball in the air
and putting the Rangers on their heels. Both teams traded shots on goal, but
by the closing minutes of the first half, FMI had the Rangers hanging only to depend on four saves from GK Taylor Payne to preserve the tie into half time.
Three minutes into the second half, Defender Alesandro Noble hit a ball back
to the GK and, just before the keeper took it on his foot, the ball took a
skip and slid under the foot, scoring an own goal for FMI. The wake up call
goal brought the fight out of the Rangers and in 35 minutes of gutsy soccer,
the Rangers 86 team came back with a Cameron Burr goal off an Andy Clark flick
at the half line to equalize the game.
Three missed chances later, off another Andy Clark flick, with two minutes remaining in the game, tied 1-1, Tyson Firmage beats two defenders on the run, stays ahead of them, keeps the ball on his foot for
a thirty yard sprint to goal, waits, doesn't pull the trigger early, makes
the keeper come out on him, and then gently lifts if over the keeper for the
winner with less than a minute to go in regulation. The Rangers come away with the come from behind win, 2-1.
That gets the Rangers out of their pool, with Wednesday's game against the
Nomads left to determine the winner of the group--an important game since
the winner gets a rest day and a bye on Thursday while the Loser must play
the first knock out game.
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