WIN: 4-3 vs Beerca: Derek Puts The Golden Boot To Bed With His Four Goal Performance On Mother’s Day!

Soccer is back! After 3 long weeks of rainouts, the Soccer Gods finally smiled on Cameron Road United yesterday…. well, smiled might have been generous given how many folks were out of town, but they at least cracked a shit eating grin at the Honey Badgers.

With an 8am start time on a beautiful green pitch, the Honey Badgers gathered for an early morning match with friendly rivals Beerca, who sat up in third place in the Over 40A table.

It was going to be a tricky game back for CRU not knowing if they would have a full starting 11 to choose from. Thankfully Schwarzy arrived just a tad late to control the center of the pitch with Ciro and Peterson missing in action. In the end, Jake made it twelve Badgers in attendance, but Jefe and the tent were not able to make it to spice up the sideline.

With so many defenders missing in action, Chappy was called into centre back duties and instructed to just do whatever the hell Jeff Z said. Copy that.

Derek and Gianluca took up spots up front with Jesus, Pete, Miguel and Adam in the midfield. The starting back line was Jake, Jeff Z, Chappy and Billy with Jaybone between the pipes.

Schwarzy arrived a tad late, and Jake had to leave at halftime, so 11 Badgers stood strong at the end of the game. And since your author was deep in the back and, like a scolded dog who was about to steal scraps of Luke’s Grandmother’s biscuits off the table heard a stearn “Chappy NO” when his foot crossed the half-line, many of the finer details of what happened at the business end of the pitch were tough to follow…. so we will dive into the broad strokes today.

At the staring whistle, Pete was shot out of a cannon in his central midfield role while Schwarzy rolled up his 1928 wool socks on the sideline. He was hauling pirate booty to the Beerca end, looking for Derek. Within minutes he found him with a doubloon on a pass as Derek set the tone for the game with an early goal from the back post.

Once Schwarzy got into the mix and Pete moved wider, the Honey Badgers passing game really took off. Cameron Road controlled the game with their passing (I know, right?), and was able to get Derek into even better positions deep. He was working well with his partner Gianluca, and Gigi dropped two more passes into the path of the cutback as Derek had himself a first half hat trick!

As Jake wasn’t feeling well and had to sub out, it was a team effort at the back as even Jesus saw time as a left back. But under Principal Zollner’s guidance and Billy’s first half calmness, the Honey Badgers only gave up one goal and went into halftime 3-1 up.

Oranges!

To start the second half, Pete settled in at left back to complete the back line for the next 45 minutes knowing there were no subs.

Obviously, being the third place team, Beerca were not going to just roll over and let the Honey Badgers take another victory from them, so CRU would be put to the test.

Beerca’s main threat was the tattooed Tony up front, who was a handful driving at the back line with power and speed. Jeff was doing a great job of directing traffic, but as the game heated up it was getting tighter near the Cameron Road goal.

At the other end, Cameron Road struck with a lightning quick fast break that saw Gianluca charge down a through ball to the byline and whip in a fantastic cross for Derek to score his 4th goal with! Incredible work from the smallest guy on the pitch going against defenders literally a foot taller than him.

But Beerca weren’t done, as Tony nabbed a ball off Chappy (thought it was a foul), and ran towards goal netting Beerca’s 2nd.

The Honey Badgers passing game was still excellent from back to front, as Miguel and Schwarzy were always available to move the ball around. Jesus was dumping in a lot of crosses from the left side, as Adam worked the dark arts on the right. There was a few “almost” goals as Jesus almost scored directly from a corner kick, and someone else smacked a ball off the crossbar. Derek also had a one-on-one with the keeper, but we can’t fault him for failing to score his 5th goal of the game.

Beerca got another one back to really make things interesting for the final 10 minutes, but the Honey Badgers soaked up all the pressure.

Somewhere in there, Jeff Z made the play of the game with a perfectly times slide tackle in the box to thwart another Beerca attack. It looked close, but the linesman was right there in the thick of it and immediately waived off any shout for a penalty or foul as Beerca protested. Silky timing from the big man who did Big Dave proud.

And when the time finally hit 90 minutes on the ref’s sub-par Casio watch, Cameron Road had pulled off a pretty impressive victory over third place Beerca as they sported an unorthodox lineup. The lineups may change, but the Badger Spirit remained. 4-3 CRU!

Man-of-the-Match: With his defensive play of the game and ever-positive tutelage of his young center back Padawan for the day, Jeff Z is the worthy recipient of this week’s awards.

Post-Game-Report: With no Jefe, Miguel backfilled the libations with a cooler full of Pacifico. With Ciro out, Chappy’s desire to ice anyone was at low-t levels.

Man-at-the-Match: Nowhere to be found.