A tournament full of turf at Redwood City. Actually I liked Red Morton park despite the weirdness of 3 turf fields surrounded by small patches of real grass.
TopGun started very slowly against Castro Valley. A bunch of missed chances meant it was 0-0 at half time despite complete dominance. So we switched things a lot in the second half with Jes and Angelina pushed into attacking roles. This slowed the pace of the TG attacks and created more crosses which I think works well on turf as the sprint team were struggling to stop the ball running out for goal kicks in the first half. Jes broke the deadlock, winning a sprint race to a diagonal ball from JJ and toe-poking into the net past the onrushing GK. Tess scored a sweet 25 yard side foot goal high into the net for the second and Angelina finished with aplomb following a devastating run and pass from Jes. There were 3 players open for the pass for that one. Then it seemed that TG settled on turf and played some very nice attacking football.... but....
..... come game 2 and our turf problems are back. 0-0 final score v. Juventus Thunder. TG were rushing their passes and missing them badly... but still it was total dominance and we ended with about 20 shots to 0.5 shots. A win would have secured a place in the semi final but the tie meant we needed 1 point from the final game v. Power to be sure...
... and we should have got a win against Power which would have provided an easier semi final. Power have beaten TG 2-0 in both previous meetings and were good for those wins. This time it was 2-1 but TG had more possession and more shots but couldn't get the win and let in 2 sloppy goals. However, we got our first headed goal when JJ put in a cross from Ysa. It was quite impressive and the Power coaches were quite shocked. Earlier, Angelina had hit the post and just after JJ's goal she nearly sneaked on in the near post... so we shoulda won and the closeness of the game shows how much progress the team has made.....
.... but then the semi final against a very good OV Heat team showed how far there is to go !!
