Battered and Bruised – Black Star Bursts Cameron Road’s Bubble

Cameron Road United fell to Black Star Austin 3-1 on the high plains of NEMP today despite a gutsy performance from the twelve players who were in town and up for the early morning match.

Battling the switch to daylight saving time and a reorganized lineup, Cameron Road United started the morning off with Jay between the pipes, Crosley, Billy, Andy and Luke across the back, Dermot, Willis, Ciro and Way in midfield and Chappy and Z up front. They were shortly joined by defensive rock Cuyler, who swapped spots with Andy as he moved to his favored outside midfield spot.

With visions of Barcelona’s passing game in their sights, Cameron Road started the game off brightly, trying to pass and move in the middle of the pitch. Ciro and Willis were doing just that in the center of midfield, with Luke and Billy playing the balls out of the back.

Giving up an early free kick just outside the box, Cameron Road set up it’s wall, but the incoming shot took an unlucky deflection off the edge of the wall and found its home in the back corner of the net. Down a fluky goal early however, Cameron Road continued to battle, finishing out the half without further damage to the score line but defending more than they would have liked to.

Since the barren wasteland of NEMP offered no connection to the tree line of Onion Creek (the secret and mystical energy source of CRU’s physical prowess on the field and vocal mockery of the opposition off it), Jay-Cameron Road’s High Priest-pulled out a live chicken from his bucket, light up some incense, and waived an oak branch from down south around each player in order to invoke the magical powers needed to fuel a comeback.

The half time seance must have worked because Cameron Road came out strong in the second half looking for the tying goal. Dermot was a ball magnet going up the right hand side. He must have emerged with the ball at his feet four or five time after plowing through Black Star defenders, looking to either dump in a cross, or set up a teammate. Ciro and Willis continued to gain possession moving forward, and one move saw Ciro gain the ball on the left side of the box and weave his way around to the right to set up a shot… unfortunately he was clattered flat on the ground… by Andy. A tragic miscommunication, but you couldn’t fault Andy for his desire… he just can’t control himself sometimes.

Unfortunately, Cameron Road saw another good opportunity inside the Black Star Box turn into a fast break against them. The resulting transition goal put them behind by two goals early in the second half.

With some frustration starting to creep in, it was do or die time for Cameron Road. Luke got off a high shot inside the box as CRU continued to press with Dermot’s aggressive play one of the rallying points.

Another good move that saw the ball played down the right hand side and switched to the left ended with Ciro ghosting down the left side of the box and making it to the byline ahead of his marker. He was able to flash a toe-poked pass across the face of goal to Chappy who had made a run inside the box and the Captain tucked it home for safe keeping. To be fair, the pass may have been heading toward the goal on its own, but Chappy made sure with a size 13, and Cameron Road was back in the game.

With 20 minutes to go, the game went back and forth. Cuyler and an unbearded Crosley were handling the pressure on the right hand side of the back where Black Star Austin usually started their attacks. Jay made a handful of good saves and used his long distributions to try and set the table for the tying goal.

When a scrappy team play ended up with Andy being chopped down on the edge of the box, Cameron Road had thought they had found their life line, but the referee deemed it a free kick outside of the box.  Shades of “the divot” danced in the minds of the CRU players, but moving on they weren’t able to convert Cuyler’s curling shot.

Ciro almost put them on level terms when another good series of passes saw him get a shot off at the top of the box, but his drive was saved by the keeper. With only a minute or two to go and Cameron Road pressing forward, Black Star Austin put the final nail in the coffin with a third goal to end the match.

All in all, it was a scrappy performance from a Cameron Road team missing many familiar faces. A fluky goal at the front end and an errant one at the back added to Black Star’s score line, but it wasn’t a good barometer of the evenness of the game.

Man-of-the-Match: Playing 90 minutes of center midfield, Ciro stood tall (well, as tall as 5’4″ would allow him too anyway) and had a really solid game in the center of the park, was involved in Cameron Road’s only goal, and almost put in a second. Not to mention he took one for the team as the recipient of a Michaelis Clark Field Special.