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Jonas Emilsson

Despite playing a man short for 88 minutes of at 90 minute match (93 minutes if you count injury time) the Western Canada Redmen scrapped their way to their second consecutive Div I Senior Boys soccer championship.

Just two minutes into the match the Redmen’s goalkeeper was shown the red card after a hard tackle, forcing the team to deploy a defender between the pipes to keep the ball out of the net.

But in dramatic fashion, the Redmen overcame the early obstacle and downed the Lord Beaverbrook Lords 6-4 in a high scoring season finale that tossed aside all tags about soccer being a low scoring game.

“With just two minutes to go, it’s an incredible feeling,” said Redmen’s head coach Cito Ariza about his team’s last minute miracle. “These guys haven’t lost a game in two years and for them to go through what they did today is just icing on the cake.”

The drama was triggered by Redmen’s Andrew Hood, who netted the goal that broke a 4-4 tie with just over a minute to play in the game.

The magical goal came thanks to a terrific individual play by Tom Widdowson, who beat two defenders going down the right side of the 18-yard box before deftly feeding the ball out front to to a wide open Hood, who made no mistake on the play by confidently burying the ball past the outstretched Lords’ keeper.

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“It was just a great match and the intensity was high the whole time,” said Redmen’s captain Nathan Rogers. “The guys just really ran deep and found some heart and gutted it out to get a big win.”

Prior to the game winner the match played out like a slug-fest between two championship heavyweights vying for the title belt.

Both teams got on the board early with Charlie Trafford scoring for the Redmen and Sean Colvin scoring for the Lords by the time the match had reached the 10-minute mark.

The deadlock was broken when Widdowson scored his first goal of the game. On the play the tricky midfielder grabbed a loose ball 35-yards from the net, made a few moves to get himself clear in the 18-yard box before tucking the ball neatly into the right corner of the net.

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But Lords’ Callum Lowther retaliated a minute later by scoring on a miracle 30-yard cannon of a shot that just squeaked under the crossbar and over the outstretched arms of the keeper.

With just five minutes to play in the opening half Lords’ Taylor Evernden gave his team a 3-2 lead heading into the break.

Just five minutes into the second half the Redmen replied to even the game when Rogers fired a rocket from the edge of the box that just found it’s way inside the right post.

Fifteen minutes later Ahmed Moussa pounced on a loose ball in the six-yard box and tucked it in the net for the go-ahead goal.

Moussa’s goal appeared destined to be the game winner, but with just four minutes to play in regulation Lowther scored his second goal of the game on a shot from 35 yards out that squeezed through the hands of the Redmen’s keeper before trickling over the goal line.

With the game tied and extra time looming the game appeared destined for extra time, but as everyone who’s ever played played sport knows, the game is not over until the final whistle blows.

Hood’s heroics just minutes before the final whistle secured the championship repeat for the Redmen. Cary Asplund scored the insurance marker for the Redmen just prior to the final whistle.

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The victory secured consecutive undefeated seasons for the Redmen. Thanks to having to play the basically the entire final a man short, it’s probably safe to say that this game may have been the most rewarding.

The Redmen were forced to go away from their typical ball possession style of game and settle on a more defensive strategy with plenty of players back behind the ball. Once the ball was won they reverted to an English style of game where the ball is fired up the field in hopes of finding an open player streaking down the field.

“We did try to load up on defense of the fact that we were one man down in order to preserve the lead, so we did try to preserve that lead a bit,” said Ariza.

“Usually we play a possession game in the midfield but because we had more players back and one guy up front we had to pump the ball up to him and hope for the best.”

“We dropped an extra man back and we have a lot of speed up front so we tried to use that to our advantage,” added Rogers.

Although the style of game was out of character, the six goals scored proved that they adjusted admirably.

“We still needed to attack and we knew needed to score some goals against these guys because they score a lot of goals,” said Rogers.

“It was just hard work all around and when we got our chances we buried them. We got some strong goaltending and when we needed to clear the ball we cleared it away.”

And with a man down early, the Redmen also knew that they would have to play an extremely disciplined match if they had any hopes of winning.

“We had incredible discipline,” gushed Ariza after the game. “There is an incredible amount of talent on this team but what pulled us through this game was the discipline that we showed.”

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