Well, that didn’t go to plan.
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| Vaasa when I was there in February. |
I played my second game (of my
2nd stint) with Haka yesterday against VPS and we lost, 2-1. If you remember, I said here that I would
start the match. In fact, if you don’t
remember then stop reading right now and go to a doctor because I’m pretty sure
you have Alzheimer’s. Anyway, things
didn’t go exactly the way I expected and I was relegated to a place on the
bench. No one likes going to the bench,
but I understood. We have a lot of
quality attacking players in the squad and we can’t all play at the same
time. If we did, we’d lose every game
5-4. We’d probably win a lot of new
fans, but not so many points.
The game itself was
strange. We gave up a goal within 45
seconds, and I still have no idea what happened. I know that the goal itself was the result of
our goalie having his pass blocked by the opposing striker, but I don’t know
how that situation could possibly have occurred. After that things didn’t get much better and
we were on the back foot for at least the first 25 minutes. VPS then scored a 2nd goal and
things looked like they could get
ugly. At that moment I was thinking about
how impressive VPS looked. During my
time in Finland I’ve seen every team play in person and no 25 minute span was
any better than their opening. But then
Sami, proving why he’s the coach, made a brilliant substitution that changed
the game. A substitution that I wouldn’t
have thought to make in a million years.
We took off one of our wingers and put in a defensive midfielder, even
though we were down two goals. This
seems like a defensive sub, but in reality it turned the whole game
around. Within five minutes we had
created two clear chances and scored one of them. VPS didn’t know what the hell was
happening. We went into halftime full of
confidence.
Now before I go into the 2nd
half, I want to mention again just how impressed I was with Sami’s tactical
switch. People who have followed this
blog will know that I love tactical discussion.
I love analyzing a game based on how each team’s tactics affected each
other. That said, whenever I am on the
bench I try to put myself in the coach’s head and think about what I would do
to change the result on the pitch. To be
honest, I had come up with my own plan, which was to switch our customary
4-3-3/4-2-3-1 into a 4-4-2 to match VPS’s 4-4-2. It would have defined everyone’s role much
better and allowed us to turn the tide a bit.
Sami didn’t do this. I don’t want
to reveal what he actually did because I don’t want to give anything away to
the opposition, but trust me it was brilliant.
I’m not just saying this because he’s my coach and I want brownie points
or anything. I’m saying it because it is
the truth. Once Sami made the change VPS
had no response and the game became balanced and even saw us dominate portions.
The 2nd half was
much better from us. We passed better
than we did against Honka in our last game and we created some good
chances. In the time I was in we hit the
post, I had a chip go just over the bar (I should have done better) and I would
have had a 1-on-1 with the keeper but I was taken out. The foul was a textbook sending off, but the defender
only got yellow. I was upset that the
referee didn’t follow the rulebook, but then again you don’t want to argue for
a player to get a red. It’s just
tacky. The ensuing free kick from 20
yards out went just a foot or so over the goal.
A few minutes late the game was over and we went home with nothing.
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| She's literally more likely to poop on herself than say my name. |
I don’t think many people
consider what it’s like for a team that has just lost a game on the road. Nobody is happy, and even if you had some
reason to be you can’t show it. For
instance, if I had gotten on the bus and had an email that said that my niece
spoke my name for the first time (she’s 11 months so that’s not really likely)
I couldn’t just go around spreading the good news. Instead, I have to sit in my seat on the bus
in silence like everyone else. In
addition, there’s guys on every team who feel a need to show just how mad they
are about a loss. It’s not ok for you to
know you’re upset; these people need everyone around them to know they’re
upset. There doesn’t exist a losing
locker room where someone doesn’t kick over a trash can or throw a water bottle
in disgust. I suggested shortly after
the game that we should go back out and do a cool-down. I clearly didn’t judge the temperature of the
room correctly, because it was clearly too soon for level-headed ideas on
preparing ourselves for our next match.
Ten minutes later though the idea was brought up again and a dozen guys
went out to cool down. I guess that
makes me a prophet.
Another staple of the return
trip of a lost game is the showing of the match dvd on the bus
televisions. Of course no one wants to
watch themselves lose and most people aren’t in the mood for critical analysis
of their play anyway, but for those who are it can be constructive. This particular video though was incredibly
annoying as it would randomly jump back 15 seconds every few minutes. As a result, it took over two hours for the
game to play out. After that, we sat in near-total
silence until we arrived back in Valkeakoski.
Fans may take losses hard, but they’re at home watching their favorite
tv comedy an hour later. Our job almost
requires us to obsess over our losses which can be quite stressful. Being on a losing bus sucks.
On the flip side, being on a
winning bus is the greatest thing ever.
The coach effectively becomes a party bus. This is the bus I was on when I was playing
in Harrisburg. We had just beaten the
Rochester Rhinos to earn a place in the final the next week:
The meme:
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