Red men grit it out

Invisible 2 PFFC 0

Damian, 4 October 2004

 

Everybody knew what a test this match would be for a Philosophy side – playing their first season in the Premier Division – against the current champions, Invisible. The two teams had met in a cup match last season which Invisible won convincingly.

Philosophy started brightly and showed promise in the early stages as half chances for both sides went narrowly wide. However, a breakthrough came for Invisible after only 15 minutes when, with Max limping off following a tackle, a momentary lapse in concentration in the defence allowed a good passing move down the right to lead to a soft goal. Only 5 minutes later a second goal followed in similar circumstances. PFFC very nearly responded immediately after this second goal, with Kieran volleying a difficult chance just wide from Damian’s free kick.

As the first half reached its half-way point, the frustration of the Invisible players was becoming evident as Philosophy kept stopping any flow to their game. Filippo and Owen consistently robbed their number 10 (and target man), and the Philosophy midfielders battled well to reduce Invisible’s chances to long-range efforts.

In the opening stages of the second half in a period Invisible dominated play, their number 9 particularly playing well and causing problems. For the rest of the second half, however, it was all Philosophy. Plenty of chances were created – the best falling to Gibbo who produced a good save from the Invisible keeper – in a 25-minute period which saw us camped in the Invisible half. Unfortunately, Philosophy didn’t have the finishing power to really trouble their keeper and were unable to score before the final whistle.

We should take heart in a very good battling performance in which we created some good chances against a top team whose players, despite winning 2-0, were still frustrated at the end by the lack of opportunities given to them.