Adecco MVP BEFC vs FC Sagarmatha - Timothy Witvliet

  • Adecco BEFC MVP vs FC Sagarmatha - Timothy Witvliet

After a long break for the Golden Week and Reiwa Era holidays, BEFC got back into the action in the rematch against FC Sagarmatha. After dropping points to Dutch FC in the chase for the division 2 top spot BEFC needed a win to keep the pressure on returning league leaders SUNS. In the normal 'anything can go wrong' mantra of playing in the TML both BEFC's preferred goal keepers, Sasuda and Katori were unavailable and so BEFC Captain Ben Palmer took up the task of goalie hoping his MVP goalie status in futsal would somehow transfer to the full game. For an early kick off, BEFC sported a nice looking squad, much changed from the depleted Dutch match, with many players returning as well as a welcome return of Arthur Villaneuva into the back four.

A refresher in tactics preceded the kick off, and promptly forgotten in classic BEFC style, but BEFC domainted quickly imposing a great deal of pressure on Sagarmatha in the press, backed up by a solid defensive block if they managed to escape it. Hard running and some exceptional play from striker Witvliet opened the scoring with an exiquisite curling strike from the left of the penalty box as he chased down a through ball and muscled his way into space. Sagarmatha barely threatened with the back four of Simon, Blancafort, Villaneuva and Yoshida holding firm and the pairing of Uwatsu and Pounder doing a fine job in holding midfield. Katase and Ririo continued to cause Sagarmatha all kinds of problems down the flanks, while the interchanging of Ballet, Maki and Witvliet upfront continue to occupy their defence. The Sagarmatha resistance starting to break away with BEFC netting more goals from inspired attacks. Soon the wide players remembered the tactics from before the match and suddenly BEFC looked dangerous everytime they went forward, with players popping up in danger zones, overloading defenders and allowing Simon and Yoshida to join the attack with plenty of space to fire in crosses or produce more link up options.
With a whirlwind of goals BEFC were 3 or 4 up by halftime, and only a debatable freekick, resulting in a rather contentious penalty call after on the last minute of the half gave Sagarmatha any hope. Their free kick simply punted into the penalty area and Blancafort penalised for apparently pulling back the player he was running alongside with for the through ball, which also didn't matter since Palmer got to the ball first anyway, and said 'fouled' player barged into the keeper a few seconds late. Blancafort feeling rather hard done by as he was simply trying to get his body infront of the other player while running as we all do, a pull wouldn't have prevented a scoring opportunity with Palmer catching the ball long before the player got anywhere near it.

BEFC put the penalty behind them at half time and focused on the quality of their play, reaffirming the pre-match tactics and how effective it was when just a few small changes -  creating space for other players to join the attacks, getting into the danger areas to make it possible to receive dangerous crosses and being close enough together to support second balls and recoveries. This continued into the second half with more of the same and BEFC putting more goals into the net from the whistle. With the scoreline in their favour BEFC didn't take their foot off the gas, knowing that goal difference could be important and also trying to improve even more the style and way they were playing, plus getting more build up play and smoother interchanges between team mates.

As BEFC kept going forward for more goals they got a little over-enthusiastic, which is an issue, leaving them open to two nasty counter-attacks. The first cut out by extreme sweeper-keepering from Palmer whose outfield defending skills prove vital as he enagge in a 1 vs 1 sprint somewhere between the box and halfway line against the Sagarmartha striker, and then a crucial intercept from Giacomini whose speed allowed him to recover for Villaneuva who did just enough to muscle the speeding Sagarmatha striker who went through from the halfway line. With those two scares noted, BEFC remembered their bad habit and went back to managing the game out intelligently and still scoring another goal or two. By now we had lost count of the score but it was about 7 - 1.

In the final minute of the second half, somewhat like the final minute of the first half, Sagarmatha won a contentious freekick around the corner spot, where they player missed out to a ball scramble. The freekick was crossed into the box and after being headed out, bouncing off another shoulder it fell between two players and judged a penalty worthy handball with Kawakami's hands being by his sides and the ball not even goal bound. After a few scratching of BEFC heads, Sagarmatha stepped up and scored their second from the spot. BEFC decided to focus instead on their great performance and quite lovely weather to have enjoyed it in, even if they had preferred Sagarmatha have their rewards from their own open play.

When it came to MVP it was practically impossible to say anyone did not have a great game. Every player put in a great individual and team level performance!! However their can only be one Adecco MVP!!! For his entire bossing of the Sagarmatha defence, tireless running, great pivot work for attack transitions into the final third and a rather beautiful opening goal the Adecco BEFC MVP vs FC Sagaramtha is Timothy Witvliet!!

With three points in the bag and a nice catch up on goal difference BEFC returned to the number 1 spot, setting up their next match against the title contenders SUNS FC as a hugely important possible champions decider!