2 for the price of 1

By: Tom B | July 19th, 2009

Terrassa
I pissed off my squad before this game, this was a big error.

Going into the game, and without an AMC to mark, I reverted to my 3-2-3-1-1. With Garcia Martinez injured again at RWB, I shifted Borja Vila back to the right and (with hindsight) inexplicably returned young Antonio to LWB (not going forward) rather than David Gonzalez. With Alfonso suspended I drafted in Garcia Ruiz (to keep the media happy) to lead the line, which I’m sure is not a very imposing sight.

This didn’t prove a great game for me. The players motivation suffered, no one was particularly keen to be there and played as such it came as no surprise when Valenzuela (Who is making far too many errors) dropped a cross from very deep at the feet of an attacker who “had to score”. I despite trying to change it up, Garcia Ruiz was never a real threat with his princely contribution of one shot, off target. So I learnt my lesson, do not piss off my team, they will be inept if I do. To make matters worse, Alfonso is annoyed at me as I fined him a weeks wages, which was unfair. What’s unfair is leaving me with bloody Garcia Ruiz as my option up front.

Gava
This was an important game, as Gava are relegation rivals. I set about choosing my team with a degree of seriousness. With Alfonso back (and the fishmonger stuck in the depths of injury recovery) he was the automatic choice up front. At wing back, Antonio (16 year old penatly taker) was rested (read dropped) and Borja Vila was at right back (adventurous) and David Gonzalez at left back (not adventurous).

In this game, I controlled the first half without truly threatening their goal, however, in the 50th minute Vasquez Garcia scored a goal that was truly special: see video below. We then got progressively more defensive, and progressively shut down the game to win 1-0. And shift up to 12th in the table.