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AS MONTEL VILLOSANGES v 1st XI
20th NOVEMBER 2011
You might be wondering whatever happened to Pierluigi Collina after he retired from refereeing in Italy. Well, look no further. He's popped up here in the Combrailles, would you believe?
As for the rest of the team, it's Matthieu in goal, a back four of Pierre, Vianney, Sébastien and Gaëtan, a midfield of Nico, Julien, Alex and Thomas, and a front two of Cedric and Jerome. Michael and the one of the other Sébastiens are on the bench.
And that's something else that's puzzling me. Over 70 players registered with the club, if I remember rightly, and only 23 can be mustered for a Sunday afternoon.
Pionsat go on the attack almost straight from the kick-off and there's a high ball out of defence that Jerome reaches, wide out on the wing. He breaks away from his marker and floats a lovely cross into the face of the goal to Thomas at the far post, who has that half-inch of space to have a first-time shot.
If Jerome and Thomas did really well, then so did the keeper as he was quickly down to parry the shot and then to drop on the loose ball before anyone else could react.
But the Chimps take the lead totally against the run of play. There's a free kick here on the nearside touchline that's played in high right across the area to the far post where one of the Chimps rises up totally unmarked and heads it in the net past Matthieu.
You would have thought that with all of the Pionsat defenders around there someone would have put in a good challenge for the ball. But Pionsat's defence does have a little tendency to go to sleep sometimes, usually at inappropriate moments.
And Pionsat are back on the attack again and this time it's Cedric racing off down the wing. Down at the by-line he puts in another one of those hard-drive crosses of the type that wreaked havoc against Malauzat the other week .
Nico comes sliding into the goal area but he just can't reach the ball. He couldn't have been more than half an inch away from that one. The keeper, with an eye on Nico, also misses the ball and it's a shame that no-one else is following up at the far post.
But Pionsat are soon back on level terms and what a magnificent goal it was. Thomas picks up the ball on the left side of centre-field, somewhere round about the halfway line. He hits a long high cross right over the entire defence and down to the right-hand edge of the penalty area where Jerome is running in behind everyone.
The keeper comes galloping off his line without a hope of ever reaching it and Jerome, with a first time shot, puts his foot under the ball and lifts it over the keeper and into the net. That goal would have been a winner on any Goal-of-the-Month competition you would have cared to name.
Having said that, it simply illustrates the folly of goalkeepers rushing off their line into no-man's land (or no-person's land, for those members of OUSA reading this match report). Jerome was never going to have more than one touch at that ball and with three defenders close to him, the correct course of action would have been to stay on the line and leave the defenders to sort it out. But it doesn't matter how many times you tell a goalkeeper, he will never learn.
The Chimps go back into the lead with a goal so unexpected that Yours Truly didn't photograph it, which is a shame because it was a goal equally as good as Jerome's.
It was a break down the Chimps left wing and a cross into the centre, where there was a Montel player totally unmarked in the penalty arc. The ball is going slightly behind him but he somehow hits it on the volley dragging it around to the front and into the net and I don't think that Matthieu even saw it.
But where was the Pionsat defence at moments like this?
A couple of seconds later, it becomes clear where one of them was. Vianney has pulled up with a muscle issue while chasing after the ball and has to limp off the field. Alex is pushed back to central defence, Pierre is pushed forward into midfield and the other Sébastien comes on and goes to right-back.
2-1 down totally against the run of play but Pionsat push forward again and almost find the equaliser. Pierre and Jerome combine nicely down the right wing and one of them crosses the ball over to the far post where Nico is lurking.
He lays the ball off into the centre for Cedric who comes sliding in for the ball and although he manages to put his foot to the ball he can't do anything else but put it into the hands of a grateful goalkeeper.
Early in the second half Pionsat find the equaliser and just for a change it's the Montel players who have fallen asleep.
Gaëtan takes some useful free kicks from the left-hand side of the field and this is another one put high and long to the far post. Everyone in the defence has their eyes on Cedric, who had been winning everything in the air up front, and Julien, who has been winning everything in the air in defence. And when the ball passes clean over their heads, the defence breathes a sigh of relief.
They haven't noticed Pierre unmarked on the right-hand edge of the area and he simply ghosts in behind everyone and prods it into the net without any difficulty whatsoever.
There's no love lost between these two teams. Having clearly read my notes from previous years, the days of Pionsat's powder-puff approach to physical challenge is a thing of the past and they can now mix it with the best of them. There were some crunching tackles going in from both sides but the difference being that the Chimps were going down as if they had been shot with a high-powered rifle. How quickly they picked themselves up when the referee waved "play-on".
The final few minutes descended into an out-and-out brawl on two occasions and the Chimps' trainer did himself no favours or credit by swinging a couple of rather-ineffective left hooks at one of the Pionsat midfielders. I don't know why anyone went to restrain him - the most he would have done would have been to have given the player a cold in the head due to the draught. How, in that particular incident, only two yellow cards were shown and how the trainer remained on the bench is another one of these mysteries that seem to abound around here.
Another unpleasant aspect of the game was a couple of inebriated Chimps going to stand behind the Pionsat linesman and not only hurl abuse throughout the second half but to issue all kinds of unpleasant threats. For neither the referee or the Chimps officials to do anything about this situation, the remarks of which echoed around the ground, is something else again.
Collina would never have stood for any of this nonsense.
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