MATCH REPORT; Wallingford Morelia 1 Madison Celtic 2

A hard fought game against a grumpy, foul laden Morelia team saw all three points make their way home with Madison Celtic. On a beautiful sunny day the Celts turned up with a strong squad for this traditionally tough match against their old Wallingford rivals. The opening skirmishes in the game were all won by a robust Madison midfield ably helped by two mobile forwards namely James and debut bhoy Todd. The wing switching the duo carried out in the opening twenty minutes allowed the midfield to always have an out ball to a fast running player. This led to some great openings that should have resulted in at least a couple of goals for James or Todd if it was not for the heroics of the Morelia goalkeeper. He pulled off one fabulous save after the other to keep the Celts out. The Madison keeper was also kept on his toes when the rare Morelia attack resulted in an on target shot.
After these opening twenty minutes the game settled in to a pattern of sorts with fast attacks by the  Madison midfield and forward line followed by break away runs from Morelia that sometimes caught the defense a bit flat footed. However, the decisive moment in the first half came when a cracking shot by Eduardo was instinctively saved by the impressive Wallingford keeper but, agonizingly for him,  he rebounded the ball to the presciently positioned Rob who bundled the ball in to the net for the opening goal of the game. As the half came to an end there was a notable rise in the number of petulant fouls coming from the Morelia side as they tried to unsettle the Madison players.

This persistent fouling continued throughout the second half which turned into a real battle and grind for both teams. In hot conditions it appeared that the team that could keep cool heads would be the victor. With less than 10 minutes of the game left it looked like Madison would claim all three points but a calamitous run of poor tackles threw that into jeopardy. The Celts were going full blast looking for the second goal that would kill the game but they got too stretched during one attack and the simple maneuver of punting the ball out of defense up to one of their players in midfield led to an equalizing goal. The Morelia player managed to squeeze past two midfielders and then slipped past the last defender leaving him an open run into the box to face a defenseless Dustin who could do nothing to stop the ball being slammed win to the net. The Celtic team of last year would have crumpled at this point and maybe even have lost another goal but this team is a different beast. They roared back into attack searching for the winner. Probing runs down the wings by James and Todd as well as menacing passes from Rob, Ronnie and Johnny B really pushed the Morelia team back on their heels. But the clock was fast running down as Ronnie played a couple of give an goes with Dave Slade and found himself just outside the opposition box where he was unceremoniously hacked down by a Morelia defender.   A clear foul in a dangerous area with only one minute left in the game. The Morelia players were incensed and managed to get one of their players red carded for bad mouthing the ref. But, with all this mayhem around him James G stood calmly over the ball with only one thing on his mind and when the ref blew his whistle  Super J launched a sublime shot that arced away from the goalkeeper and bulged the net for a glorious winning goal. The opposition could barely restart  the game before the ref ended the match. A tough game but three well deserved points for the excellent Celts!

Man of the Match; Great performances all around the field with a strong midfield of Ronnie, Johnny B, Alex and David Slade dominating for most of the match. The defense only had a few lapses during the game but for most of the 90 were tight and strong.  The 4 rejuvenated strikers were great throughout the game, especially Todd on his debut game. But the stand out player on the day for his superb forward play and his very special game winning goal goes to Super James!