“It was always at the last second when the line snapped

Or the boat broke in half from the size of the catch”

Oakville staged a late comeback, coming from two goals down to draw 2-2 in the 95th minute against a Woodbridge side that could have secured a place in the final with the three points.

Woodbridge travelled south to Bronte Athletic Stadium on a rainy Saturday where their discipline would definitely be under heavy pressure from the team that beat them in last years championship game. They started Stefano Voci upfront and Isaiah Johnston on the right, with Michael Krzeminski and Mathew Santos dropping out. New boy Francio Henry started in a holding midfield role alongside Joshua Paredes-Proctor for his 3rd appearance of the season.

Oakville made a few changes from last weeks win over Unionville Milliken, with Al James coming in at left back, Carlo DiFeo on the right of the midfield instead of Tyriq Armstrong and Filipe Vilela starting up top over the presumably suspended (?) Anthony Novak.

Due to the rain, the surface was very slick which hindered the usual Oakville gameplan with the long passes into the channels skipping away from the attackers, meaning they couldn’t get many moves going and a lot of attacks fizzling out with the ball running off the pitch. They did, however, keep hold of the ball better this than against UM with Woodbridge taking a much more stand-off approach in the centre of the park, opting to sit back and stay more disciplined.

Woodbridge often had nine outfield players back when Oakville attacked, not giving them much room in the final third, forcing the giveaways. But they didn’t do too much with the ball when they did get it back. Oakville’s heavy press forced Woodbridge to pay the ball long to Voci who was the sole forward player and even if he did get the ball, couldn’t hold it long enough to bring fellow attackers into the play.

Despite this, they actually had arguably the best chance of the half, when Tarik Robertson came inside from the right and floated a pinpoint ball over the defence to Voci, who had broken the offside trap. Unfortunately for Woodbridge, Voci’s firsts touch wasn’t the greatest and it bounced high into the air, with Voci acrobatically attempting an overhead kick from 6 yards that was saved easily by Lucas Birnstingl.

Oakville had a good couple chances towards the end of the half when Al James nodded the ball back to Khody Ellis from a corner, who also, acrobatically volleyed towards goal. His shot was blocked on the line and Vilela’s follow up was deflected just over from close range.

One thing that I noticed this half, which I embarrassingly have not noticed before, was the substitutions that occurred for Woodbridge. Now I might be completely wrong, but I feel the under 23 rule was ‘abused’ for lack of a better word, with Woodbridge bringing on Emmanuel Isaac for Ali El Zeir in the 29th minute. Usually, I would put this down to tactical switch or injury, but I noticed that El Zeir has been taken off in the first half or at halftime 3-4 times this season, including in the previous playoff match against Sigma.

The rules state:

c) No less than Eight (8) of the players listed on the game sheet, and no less than Four (4) of the designated starting eleven

players, MUST be U23 players. For the 2017 season, a player classified as a U23 must be born in 1994 or later (Obviously, it’s 2018 season now so that year would be 1995.)

To be honest, I don’t know El Zeir’s age, I couldn’t find it online, though he was a rookie at University 2 years ago, so I make him to be 20/21? ie. under 23. I may not have noticed if it wasn’t for Isaiah Johnston, who turns 17 in December, was substituted in the 38th minute for Tyrell Rayne, who is over 23.

Maybe this happens every week and I haven’t noticed, and technically it’s not against the rules, both teams in this game took three of those four u23’s off and brought another on – one or two were due to injury e.g. Braden Culver. Though last week he and Armstrong were taken off at HT for older players…..

The point of all this is, whilst I don’t think this law is as egregiously abused during the regular season, is it worthwhile to keep it for the playoffs or should it be changed slightly? Start with two u23’s perhaps? Maybe limit the subs to three per team for playoffs to avoid excessive substitutions? Or (c) just keep it as it is, who cares?

I would make a poll but I don’t want to highlight the embarrassingly few readers I have…lol

Aaaaanywho, back to the game, where Woodbridge were almost a different team in the second half. They were on the front foot, looking for a goal, with the added attacking quality in Isaac and Rayne supporting Voci, they were a lot more open, managing to stay strong at the back as well as look dangerous going forward. Isaac specifically saw a lot of the ball in the second half in attacking areas.

With the ball both teams attack in a similar fashion, looking to exploit areas behind the defence, but where they differed was the defence. Oakville defended from the front whereas Woodbridge would rather sit back. Though in the second half Woodbridge did occasionally press the Oakville backline when they had the ball, and this caused a good chance when Proctor-Paredes intercepted a pass out of the back, with Konnor McNamara out of position, Voci was played into lots of space on the left but his cross to the back post was headed narrowly over by Rayne.

But in the 72nd minute they did make the pressure count. A corner wasn’t cleared twice, on the second cross it was only nudged out to Isaac at the back post, inside the 18 yard box the defenders couldn’t touch him as he brought the ball more central and shot through a crowd of players at the edge of the box into the bottom left corner off the post.

Oakville started to push men forward, needing to get something out of the game and moved to three at the back, but it took some getting used to as Woodbridge continued to be on top. Then, 7 minutes after the first goal, Woodbridge doubled their lead. Oakville had committed men forward in search of an equalizer when substitute Jose Melo picked up the ball in the centre of the park and played a ball over the top of James for Rayne to run onto. He got in front of his defender and lifted the ball over the oncoming goalkeeper, but his shot was too soft. As K-Mac and James both went to clear under pressure from De Sousa they comically ran into each other and falling over with the ball popping up for De Sousa to play into an empty net.

Oakville were not dead yet. They pushed immediately for a goal to get them back into the game and 3 minutes later they were. Gallo played a ball into the box from a deep position that was missed by three players and hit Robertson at the back post bouncing back into the path of Vilela who poked home past Stillo.

Oakville pushed and pushed for the final 10-15 minutes but barely got a decent effort in on goal with the Woodbridge defence standing up to the pressure. With two minutes left of regular time, Isaac stupidly got sent off when he was fairly tackled by Gallo, and decided to commit a professional foul to break up the counter-attack, pulling him back. Gallo didn’t take kindly to this and pushed Isaac in the chest/shoulder/neck ish area causing Isaac to square up to him and push his head towards him right in front of the referee. I believe this earned him a straight red rather than a second yellow and he will miss the final crucial game against Unionville Milliken next week.

Oakville continued the onslaught as Woodbridge went into timewasting mode, but the Blue Devils got their reward with almost the last kick, or head, of the game. Hernandez got the ball on the right and played a lovely blind cross into the area where a completely unmarked Carvalho was able the head the ball back into the bottom corner to huge celebration.

Woodbridge will feel they are unlucky after going two up but a draw is probably fair for two teams that you can’t separate having drawn the last 5 games back to 2016, even in 2015 when they played two matches against each other they won 1 each.

Woodbridge go into the final game with the advantage of the easier game against winless UM, with Oakville travelling to Mississauga to play Sigma. With this draw it will come down to goal difference which is currently the same for both teams, so whoever gets the biggest win will qualify for the championship game.

That equalizer in Oakville meant that Sigma could have a say in who goes through after giving themselves a chance, beating UM 2-1 on Saturday at Bill Crothers Turf Centre, though they will have to rely on Woodbridge failing to beat UM next week to get there.

The visitors had a majority of the possession and chances in the first half but couldn’t make it count. It was actually Um that had the best chance when Hassan Abdulmumini forced a great save from Tristan Henry who was at full stretch to keep the header out.

Sigma rode their luck with Um having a couple very good chances to take the lead. Henry was forced into another great save down to his left. From the resulting corner, the ball was headed back across goal to Richard West whose sweeping shot was blocked on the line by Klaidi Cela but it zipped across the line, hit the post and came out before being cleared.

Sigma made a string of changes which seemed to change the course of the game as within minutes they were ahead. They won the ball back on the right and Charlie Anagho-Ntamark played Daniel Jodah down the right, the pass back to CA-N was slightly behind him buy Christian Samaniego was following up. He attracted two defenders to him to block a potential shot leaving Kadell Thomas free on the left, who received the ball from Samaniego who emphatically found the net.

As UM pushed forward for an equalizer, they left gaps open at the back and Jodah should have taken advantage of this when he received the ball under little pressure in the box but shot straight at Adrian Ibanez in goal.

Sigma did double their lead in the 83rd minute, with a quick attack down the left after Henry made a good save from Kiril Dimitrov. He threw the ball out to Monti Mohsen who played a long ball down the line for Thomas to run onto. He beat his man and the goalkeeper to the ball and lifted it high over him from the edge of the area and it dropped into the net.

CA-N should have made it 3 nil on another breakaway, but fluffed his 1 on 1 chance, shooting straight into Ibanez.

To make the last moments interesting, UM did get a goal back through Dimitrov in the 86th minute. Cela slipped when changing direction to go towards a cross allowing Dimitrov to flick in from close range. But it was too little too late for the home side whose playoff dreams are over for the year.

They have a chance next week to finish with some pride and at the same time dash Woodbridge’s hopes of making the championship game by getting any result there.

Sigma needs UM to do them a favour and beat Oakville to progress.

Group A, on the other hand, is far less interesting. On Thursday Vaughan beat Alliance through a Dylan Sacremento header in the 36th minute to give them 6 points.

With the 1-1 draw between Darby and London on Saturday, this secured Vaughan’s place in the championship game on the 20th October at the Ontario Soccer Centre. Connor Wilson scored a great goal in the 72nd minute to give London hope. He was played through and came inside onto his right foot avoiding the first defender before spinning past the second and sending a shot into the far corner.

But an unmarked Marcellus Paul ended London’s campaign 9 minutes later with a strong glancing header.

Disappointing end to a successful season for London, I expected much more from them, but Darby are a hard team to beat and despite also going out have had a good year themselves.

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Dan Baldwin Dan joins us to finally get involved in doing something about the sport he loves. Born in England he has played and followed the game his whole life. After moving to Toronto in 2014, he immediately began to learn about the local soccer scene and is passionate about the development of the sport in the country. However, he can still found cheering on his beloved West Ham each weekend morning at the Dog and Bear pub.

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