MATCH REPORT; Madison 5 Woodbridge 2

Sadly, all good things come to an end. But what a sweet end to Madison Celtic's campaign in the CARSL. A superb 5-2 win against close rivals Woodbridge cemented the Celts claim to be the best team in the league.

Madison started the game in a strangely subdued fashion allowing the visitors to make most of the early play. The opposition no 19 showed that he was in good form with some strong early running and shots. Madison could not get into top gear and their passing was woefully short of the standards of recent games. The Madison defence, which as a unit, has been incredibly strong this season was getting caught out on a regular basis with high balls being lobbed over the final defender and allowing opposition players to run onto the ball. Having suffered and survived such a maneuver several times in the opening twenty minutes the Celts finally succumbed to the tactic when the speedy no 19 latched onto a lofted ball and raced into the Madison box trailing two defenders in his wake and cracked a superb tightly angled shot past The Hulk from about 10 yards out. Although, this was their first shot on target it was a richly deserved goal for the effort Woodbridge had been putting into the game. Madison were stung into action after this set back although they still could not get their passing into the groove. Some decent attacks from the home team always seemed to break down and dissipate around the penalty box and clearly this was beginning to frustrate the Celtic forwards. Madison were also still prone to the lobbed ball over the defence tactic. In fact the home team were lucky to not go two down with only minutes left in the first half when another breakaway ball saw a Woodbridge striker racing at the goal with only the goalie to beat. But what a goalie! The Hulk spurted out of his area like a rampaging bull, taking out two players in the move ( including Gogglito!) as he chested the ball down and tried to kick the ball up field. Unluckily, it went to an opposition player on the wing but undaunted The Hulk raced after him tackling him out on the line. Unfortunately, the ball broke to yet another attacker who swept the ball towards the now empty net but because of The Hulks heroics the defence had got back in numbers and Johnaldo swept the ball up field. The ball eventually landed at the feet of Carlos out on the Madison right wing who then lofted an outrageous shot from fully 35 yards out over the opposition goalie and into the net for the equalizer! A dramatic last five minutes to the half that could have saw Madison two down but instead they were right back in the game.

Some smart tactical switches at the halftime break saw Gogglito fall back to being the sweeper and the two backs close in on the center. Johnaldo was tasked with man marking the no 19 and Tano asked to keep in the opposition box as much as he could. These changes would prove to be most effective in the second half as the Woodbridge No 19 dropped out of the game and Tano pounced twice in the box to score. His first goal was a work of art. BOR started the move way back in defence by running up the left wing, he passed to Carlito who returned the ball with a sweet back heel, BOR then passed to Safet on the edge of the box who also back heeled it to the still rushing BOR. At this point BOR had run the entire length of the field and was almost at the opposition bye line but he still had enough energy and composure to send over a beautiful cross that was met by the hip, thigh and feet of Tano as he slammed the ball into the net for the go ahead goal for Madison. The quality of the move and the goal seemed to suck the fight out of the Woodbridge team and they were under constant pressure from that point on. Another move on the right saw Carlos once again in space well outside the opposition box and unbelievably he again lofted the ball over the goalie from distance to score his second and Madison's third of the game. It was now only a question of how many Madison would score as they had their tails up and were playing some great football. So it was no great surprise when another swift move down the Madison left saw a killer ball sent in from Safet that was neatly nipped into the net by the predatory Tano. Maybe not surprisingly, after this fourth goal the Celts took their foot of the gas and allowed Woodbridge a bit more of the ball. And they certainly took advantage of that when a short corner was swept over menacingly into the Madison box. Bruce stretched to tip the ball onto the bar but the opposition striker manged to bundle the ball into the net with his gut. Ugly, but still a goal. Madison had a bit of their pride dented by this goal and they swept back into attack and with only a minute left on the clock, man of the match Carlos, showed that not only can lightening strike twice in the same place sometimes it does it three times! The ball came to him on the left side of the field and with not many options available to him he chose the spectacular by crafting a high arcing ball from a good 35 yards out which sailed over the despairing grasp of the opposition goalie to nestle in the net and round off a truly superb 5-2 win for Madison.


MAN OF THE MATCH; CARLOS. What a fantastic three goal , hat trick performance from Carlos and every one of them a goal of the season! Having said that, i think the actual goal of the season was also scored in this game by Tano after an unbelievable assist by BOR! Great play by Gogglito, The Hulk and Telat during the game and the midfield really hustled in the second half.


So, that's all folks! With only two games left on their CARSL schedule Madison will be joining the SASL Div 3 starting on Aug 15th for the start of the 2010/2011 season. This means that even though Madison Celtic are several points ahead of teams like Woodbridge and, at the time of writing Bridgeport, it will be unlikely that they will remain there when these teams play their extra games and we forfeit our last two. Having said that, it has been a truly fantastic 13 game campaign, winning 10 games drawing twice and losing only once. The stand out feature of the campaign has been a defense that is clearly the best in the league losing only 8 goals through the whole season and completing 8 shut out games of the 13! Of course, as with any winning team it has been the team spirit that has moved the team forward and made them so competitive, so difficult to beat and long may it continue into the new league! Another champions performance from a truly champion team!


You can see all the season stats on the stats page or if you are lazy you can see them here;


http://madisonceltic.blogspot.com/p/season-statistics.html


Team meeting at Augers in Guilford this Monday night 6.30 pm!