MATCH REPORT; Southbury 1 Madison 1

La Boca was silent, his head bowed, strangely still. "Are you OK Danny?" I asked. He slowly turned to meet my question. "Dude, we should have won that game.....what the Hell happened?" Now, I was silent.....

A game that Madison had in the bag squirmed away from them in the last minute when a very rare Southbury attack ended with the ball nestling in the back of the Madison net for a cruel and undeserved equalizer. Madison should have had this game wrapped up in the first half after a frenetic fast paced start to the game which saw the Celts peppering the Southbury goal with several shots on target. Halil and Tano were moving the ball well at this stage of the game and the Southbury defense were clearly struggling to contain them. Even with a strong gusting wind blowing in their direction the Madison team were making most of the notable power plays but unfortunately not making the most of their possession. Even though the season is still at its early stages, a worrying pattern is beginning to emerge for Madison...... an inability to score when on top! Even with strong possession in midfield and very robust and commanding defending, Madison were still unable to convert their favourable stats into a lead. After thirty minutes the game started to even out and the first tell tale signs that the Madison forwards and some of the midfield were beginning to run out of steam began to appear; walking instead of running, pointing instead of tackling, talking instead of thinking! However, just when it looked like the Celts were starting to struggle Tano fired in a great shot that hit the bar and after a bit of 'ping pong' in the box the ball rebounded to Arnie who slotted it into the net for a Madison lead. Another fantastic shot by Tano that had the Southbury goalie desperately scrambling across the goal nearly made it two but the half finished with a dominant Celtic team one up.

Predictably, the raging first half wind eased to a gentle mocking breeze just before the start of the second half preventing Madison from taking advantage of firing high balls into the box. Not that they managed to get many crosses in. More often than not, their slow as molasses play found one, two and on one glorious occasion, three of the Madison forwards caught in offside positions! Luckily for Madison the Celtic defenders were, once again, in superb form, holding the line and stopping any attempted breakaways before they even got going. Roniildo in particular was in exceptional form defending, tackling, running into space and making great passes.....probably his best game in a Celtic shirt! La Boca, as ever, was all controlled passion and the heartbeat of the team and Telat rarely missed a tackle. Jodingo!! was also throwing himself into the fray taking a blast to the face without missing a beat.

As the game edged towards the end of the 90 minutes the match was finely balanced with Southbury taking advantage of some very poor passing by Madison and putting together some reasonable possession play, though with little penetration. Erratic substitutions by Celtic really affected the balance of the team at this point in the game and you could feel the tide turning ever so slightly in the favor of Southbury. With a minute left calamity hit the Celtic defence as a ball through the middle was headed on to the Madison right side where an on rushing and unmarked Southbury striker collected the ball in his stride and hit a superb shot past the goalie. Bruce had no chance with the shot but the build up play by Southbury should have been snuffed out before the move reached its awful conclusion. The goal knocked the wind out of the team and the ball was barely back in play before the whistle sounded to end the game on a sour note for Celtic. It was a particularly tough ending for the Madison defence after such a strong performance and it clearly left them feeling robbed.

La Boca was silent, his head bowed.......

MAN OF THE MATCH; Roniildo... a player at the top of his game mentally and physically! Fantastic play by Roniildo who is really revelling in his new role just in front of La Boca.