The Ottawa Fury continued their road trip on Saturday night against the Atlanta Silverbacks at Silverbacks Park. The match was not an exciting one. In fact much of the excitement surrounding the team happened during their journey to Atlanta. Ottawa Fury player Oliver Minatel was sleeping on the plane when he felt something around his neck. The passenger behind him was trying to use his headphones to strangle the Brazilian forward. Thankfully another passenger stepped in before things got too out of hand. The strangler was taken into custody and was clearly misguided as he thought “the men in the black suits” were there to harm him. The team arrived in Atlanta safe and sound but a bit shaken psychologically. Not the way you want to start your trip.

Add to this player unavailability woes and a simple game against the Atlanta Silverbacks now seems a bit daunting. Coach Marc Dos Santos would have to be without Julian DeGuzman as a result of his red card in last week’s match against Carolina. Captain Richie Ryan was still unavailable due to injury as was veteran midfielder Sinisa Ubiparipovic. And of course Phil Davies will be out for the majority, if not all of the short spring season due to a broken arm. So this weeks line up was still a bit out of the ordinary for the Fury in the middle. Romuald Peiser assumes his goalkeeping position. Mike Randolph, Colin Falvey, Rafael Alves and Ryan Richter start as defenders. Patryk Misik, Oliver, and Nicki Paterson start as midfielders. Brandon Poltronieri, Tommy Heinemann, and Carl Haworth are our starting forwards.

The first half started out fairly even with both teams sharing possession of the ball and not really getting many chances either way. Things turned in favour of the Fury when forward Brandon Poltronieri took a high boot to the face and went down hard. Atlanta Silverback’s defender Kyle Miller was given a yellow card and the Fury’s Nicki Paterson stepped up to take the free kick. And what a free kick it was! The ball sailed over everyone and curled into the net past Silverback’s keeper CJ Cochran. So the Fury went into half time one goal up.

The second half was not much more eventful than the first. The Silverbacks goal came early on at minute 57. Forward Kyle Porter was clearly in an offside position but the play was not called back and the goal stood. http://www.nasl.com/match-center/888/atl-vs-ott#tabs-7 From there both teams battled to get the win but neither could come up with a deciding goal. In effort to add some fresh energy to the squad, defender Drew Beckie would come in for midfielder Patryk Misik, Andrew Wiedeman replaced Oliver, and Mauro Eustaquio got his first playing minutes as he came on for Brandon Poltronieri. The game ended in a 1-1 draw with the Fury picking up a point on the road.

Stand out performances of the evening came from midfielder Patryk Misik, who continues to show incredible poise and maturity for such a young player, Carl Haworth, who continues to be a strong offensive presence, and Colin Falvey whose aggressive defending style kept the score level at 1-1.

Dos Santos chose to focus on the positives. “This is an important point as we played two away matches to start the season and we will use this point as momentum for our home opener next week.” The team will look to come out strong for the home fans next Saturday, April 18 as The Ottawa Fury play their first home game of the season at TD Place against Minnesota United.

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Kendra Lee Kendra Lee came to love the beautiful game a decade ago watching Premier League games in her living room. Since then she has become interested in the stories behind the sport from the supporters to the lives of the players to the history of the teams and what they represent. She supports Rayo Vallecano in Spain and most importantly Ottawa Fury FC in Canada. As a founding member of the supporters group Stony Monday Riot, she makes regular contributions to the blog in the form of player interviews. Her insights on the team can also be heard on the "Ours is the Fury" podcast. Above all she is dedicated to growing the Canadian game.

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