EFA Cup Quarter Finals: Game of the Week

Tormenta Advertencia v ELA Elementals (EFA Cup Quarter Final)

The day before the game, visiting manager Andy Burton was in top form at the pre-match press conference. His comments about the treatment suffered by defender Adam Reardon seemed a little strange considering the player was sold earlier in the week. Mr Burton claimed the sale was necessary to strengthen the side for the end of season run in. In complete opposite, David Newell was his usual dry self in his press conference and gave very little away ahead of the game.

A sold out 30,000 crowd were in good voice to greet the two Premier Division sides and bright sunshine made a big chance from the almost incessant rain of previous weeks. The sun shone and it initially worked wonders for the home side. Tormenta Advertencia looked to be totally focused on getting a result and after a couple of long range efforts in the first ten minutes they really clicked into top gear.

Mariano Lasa won a tackle of the half way line and drove forward with purpose. As Imanol Erlings looked to force him wide he quickly flicked the ball inside to Sherlock Merrison just inside the area. The Welsh youngster looked to have badly controlled the ball as it rose high into the air. Defenders closed rapidly, but Merrison launched himself into a classic bicycle kick and connected sweetly. The ball flew towards goal and despite fingertips from Monfred Gabel it went in off the post to give Advertencia an early lead.

ELA Elementals looked stunned and from the resulting kick-off they quickly lost possession when the usually reliable Jj Valoy Cuesta over hit a long ball by some distance. The goal kick was quickly taken by Esaie Esau Ade who played the ball square to Vita Gornostayev. The Russian then smashed one his trademark long balls up towards the forwards, where Rubi Valentino got his head to the ball, directing it into the the path of Merrison. A quick touch to bring the ball under control was followed by a rasping drive past Gabel to give Advertencia and Merrison their second goal in three minutes. Mr Newell was even seen to briefly smile on the touchline – a rare event indeed.

Elementals needed to get into the game somehow and slowly they did manage to see more of the ball. Albeit with little end product initially. The visitors were now dominating possession and starting to look for the goal that would get them back into the game. They got their break just before the half hour mark when a Yuma Encinitas clearance smashed into the chest of Marcelo Meier and fell invitingly for Burton Wragg to pick his spot from ten yards. A lucky goal but it was probably deserved as the sides went into half time 2-1.

Half Time: 2-1

The second half began with Elementals having the majority of possession again. Their adventurous approach paid benefits for Elementals when five minutes after the restart Dagfinn Emil finished calmly from eight yards out after a corner was not cleared. Again slightly fortuitous but the scores were level and Mr Burton was screaming orders to his charges, urging them to press on for a winner. However, they had to be aware of Advertencia’s striker Merrison and the lively Valentino who both looked like they could score given any sight of goal. In fact the next period of the game fact saw the best efforts of Meier and Wragg come up fruitless, while Merrison hit the post and had a long range effort well saved by Gabel.

Finally as the hour mark was passed Meier finally found his shooting boots. He controlled a cross from Wragg neatly on the edge of the box and after shifting the ball to the left he smashed a drive low through Grayson Cantrell’s legs and past Esaie Esau Ade. The accuracy of the shot was wonderful and may have been goal of the week most weeks if not for Merrison’s opener.

After seeing their two goal lead turn into a deficit, the home side found new strength and rallied well. Mariano Lasa started to get more of the ball and it was his one-two with Valentino that saw him drive into the area. Beating another challenge he fired a low shot to Gabel’s left only to see it pushed onto the post. All was not lost as the quickest to react was Merrison, who clipped the ball over the keeper with great skill to level the scores once more.

Both sides started to feel the pace and it looked the sudden death extra-time was inevitable. Neither side created too much and when the impressive Merrison just failed to stretch out a leg to sub Bobby Briggs’ cross with four minutes on the clock, both managers looked resigned to giving another team talk. However, Wragg had other ideas and his speculative long range effort look a wild deflection to leave Ade stranded as the ball trickled over for a sure-fire winner with a couple of minutes remaining. Luck was certainly on the side of the ageing English striker.

Clearly frustrated, Advertencia manager David Newell appealed for a last ditch effort from his side, but they could not create anything worthwhile and were left to concentrate on the remainder of their league campaign. The only positive at the end of the day was the performance of Man of the Match Sherlock Merrison; his hat-trick was top draw and he could and maybe should have had more. The young man from the heart of rugby mad Wales is one of the brightest starts in Einnek One.

Full Time: 3-4

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Game of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.