God lied. He said he’d never flood the Earth again. But there was a second flood …. of goals … from the Rowdies Wednesday night. Pair off everyone.

Marcel Schafer seemed to want to make it to the playoffs more than anybody and scored his fourth and fifth goals of the season, his first two goals scored at home.

The first goal, as pleasing as it was, is easy to forget. His second goal, rendered me longing for a cold shower and a cigarette.

But as humble as he is, Schafer would have rather not scored it.

“Normally I’m the player that wants to assist my teammates,” Schafer said. “It means more for me than when I score, to cross the ball and assist the team. In this situation, I didn’t see anyone and in Germany you say ‘I take my heart into my hands’ and shot.”

But deep down, he knows he’s great.

“Maybe it is dangerous to give me too much space,” Schafer said. “It was a really great goal, I think.”

“Great” is an understatement. The goal, which ended up being the game winner in a 3-2 victory for Tampa Bay, looked to come out of a German military experiment that went really, really right.

Schafer’s left foot works with the precision of a Mercedes and the power of a German weight lifter named Helga. And coming from 20 yards out, zipped by goalkeeper Rafael Diaz who probably still smells sauerkraut and doesn’t know why.

In all seriousness, Schafer is correct. It is a team effort, and despite his two goals, he was able to tally that assist he loves so much, by setting up fellow veteran, Joe Cole for a Rowdies goal in the 18th minute.

“It was our target that today we would clinch the playoffs and we did it,” Schäfer said. “We did a great job today. The whole team did a great job. We worked hard and now we’re in the playoffs.”

The “veteran connection” was an important one today. Schafer set up Cole, Cole returned the favor, setting up Schafer’s second goal, and Georgi Hristov made sure to get on the score sheet with an assist in Shafer’s first goal.

“The whole team played really, really well,’ Rowdies head coach Stuart Campbell said. “From back to front, front to back, young to old, old to young – call it what you want – I thought everyone was really impressive and they deserve a lot of credit.”

The Rowdies will hit the road for their final two matches of the season, first in San Antonio and then to Orlando before competing in the playoffs for the first time since wining the championship in 2012.