Green Book 2022: Tomorrow We'll Be Sore

The surge continued and Brucey used acres of space at the top of the box to turn a short
rebound into an unstoppable contender for the 2022 Puskas Award. Leo tapped in one soon
after that … but you’d be wrong to think Greens hung their heads. A couple of well executed
runs inside and Daniel pegged back the score twice in succession to have us at a crowdpleasing,
hope-restoring 5-2 at half time.
While the first half was full of fireworks and strikes, the second half was more like a
heavyweight fight in about round 12. Lots of fakes, swings and misses and a lot more
clammed up defences at both ends. The score moved early on with Michael scoring a free
kick that Tomaz declared as of the softest goals he ever conceded in any of the sports he has
kept goals in (bought his book yet? $15 at the bar, mates rates…). There was also some unnecessary
backchatting to the firm-but-fair Danny who kindly reffed the match and Ali’s yellow
very quickly turned red. A statement of intent at a club level really of what we really
should (not) be spending energy on this year. To make things worse for Greens, Frankie
made himself unavailable for the next few weeks with a nasty hamstring injury. But again,
through some cracking individual efforts of calm and steady Renzo, I-ve-come-to-take-yourball
Steve, always lurking and working Daniel and others, Greens showed in passages why
they will be a force to be reckoned with. Eventually … Oh yes, Pinks scored another tap-in
with 10 minutes to go, their master defender Brian had a run in attack and Brucey tarnished
his Puskas-nomination glow with an open goal miss seconds before Danny whistled the post
game BBQ can start.
The post game was exactly the reminder why we play this beautiful game. Special thanks to
Renzo, Elly and Hector for looking after us all with terrific nosh.
Well yes, the fantasy about us trying out the team song turned out to be just that. Heavy loss
but a post-game afternoon that made up for the disappointment of getting the ball out of
our net seven times. Daniel brought his big DJ speaker with tunes to move to, Westy opened
the bar and our South American contingent sourced out some fantastic chorizo to go with
some excellent special sauce (even though it later turned out it was made by Javier from
Reds … but we forgave him with full mouths of it). It was an absolute pleasure to spend the
afternoon with the always competitive but equally always friendly and mouthy gaggle of
MUMFC Masters. You couldn’t tell by the team picture whether we won or lost by five that
afternoon. What matters!
Like any self-respecting team, we also analysed what went well and what could be better in
the future games. Avoiding red cards, playing as a team and supporting each other were
always going to work, no matter what tactics we played. Speaking of tactics, we were
definitely on the right track by using the same kind of gear as Pep at Manchester City, surely.
Now if we were only as quick on the pitch as we were in ordering beers with a teammate’s
wallet left behind at training … All this must have been a bit much for our chief larrikin Jorge
who was summoned for some serious heart monitoring and tests. No laughing matter that
and we of course wished the funny fella all the best.