FC77 Rangers 1:1 Blitz

FC77 Rangers 1 - 1 Blitz

(Muralt 60')

What kind of weird alternate parallel universe exists where the shortest guy on the squad plays goalkeeper, Bauman gets multiple shots at the opposition's goal, and Blitz shows up with eleven players AND substitutes? Is it the temporal/trans-dimensional forerunner of the counterpart universe depicted so memorably in the Star Trek, season 2, episode 12 "Mirror, Mirror" where Kirk gets inadvertently beamed onto the ISS Enterprise and Spock has an evil goatee? See exhibit "A" - Evil Spock, below.

Exhibit "A" - Evil Spock

Though one could reasonably argue that it was more than a coincidence that had Rangers first non-noon kick-off on the hottest day of the year, one could not argue that the second half fight, moxie, spirit, and grit on display was nothing but straight up Old School Rangers football. If Match Day Eight in the GPSD O-30 Third Rose City did happen in an alternate universe, we should all take heart that our parallel universe selves can all kick as much ass in that universe as we do in this one. And we do it without evil goatees. Mostly.

Starting XI:

Snyder, evil goalkeeper

Seaton - Bauman - Pullen, evil fullbacks

Gaffney, evil holding midfielder

Ingersoll - Radigan - Muralt - Burden, evil midfielders

McConnachie - King, evil forwards

Evil supporter: Calkins

Yes, Evil FC77 Rangers fielded a 3-1-4-2, which is something distinctly different from regular FC77 Rangers, but such are the foibles of quantum physics. With Calkins unable to suit up due to administrative difficulties, Evil Jim Snyder graciously took the keeper's gloves for the first 45 minutes. A full strength Blitz kreiged forward in search of the victory that has so long eluded them and put up a spirited struggle in the wilting temperatures. The Evil Black and Yellow started a little slowly and, while getting a few forays into the opposition's side, often found ourselves battling for possession in the midfield and struggling to get numbers forward to support the attacks. Evils Seaton, Bauman and Pullen clipped several attacks or held up play long enough for Evil Gaffney and the center middies to drop back and clog the center. We had a few strikes at goal and asked a few evil questions on corners, but the Blitz keeper was up the task and reset play with thundering punts that dropped somewhere beyond the center circle. Snyder smacked down two notable shots and kept his house clean and Bauman found himself deep in Blitz space on at least two occasions, earning a pop or two at the goal.

It should be noted that in this parallel universe, the earth is apparently closer to the sun, like Cestus III in Star Trek "Arena"--you know, the episode where Kirk fights the Gorn on the desert planet. Acknowledging this, referee Peter permitted water breaks mid-way through the halves to keep both sides hydrated and, well, not dead. Blitz took full advantage of this break and came back for the final 20 of the first half with a surge of activity that resulted in their only score of the match. Catching the midfielders high on a counter, four Blitzers ran at our outnumbered defenders and went up around the half-hour mark. Evil Rangers held tough for the remainder of the half and took refuge under the shade of the touchline trees.

Having served admirably in goal, it was only fair to get Snyder's fresh legs back onto the pitch, so 5'-6 7/8" tall Ingersoll man(agered) up and donned the sexy purple tunic and gloves. Having last played keeper in 19...er, well, actually never...this was a bold tactical move and one that only a truly evil universe skipper would make. I can't comment as to what the rest of the team thought when they saw him put on the keeper's shirt, so feel free to leave a comment on this post yourself. You can do that, you know. Just be sure to use the words "awesome" and/or "evil". After slowly walking out to the goal posts and having to leap pretty high to ensure he could actually touch the crossbar, Evil Sean was soon joined by his backs and match official Peter blew the second half to a start...

...unleashing Old School FC77 Rangers. Proving that awesomeness cannot be constrained by the mere boundaries of space and time, the evil Yellow and Black went to work with renewed vigor and, from my lonely vantage point in the back, seemed to be tasked with only one goal: Blitz orthopedic surgery. Muralt, Radigan and King operated as blunt instruments, crashing shoulders and bludgeoning midfielders. Snyder, by contrast, appeared to be more of a scapel--his seventy-fifth minute slide on the Blitz striker was so surgical, so precise, that even the opposition was forced to conceed, "Um, that was a good tackle." Pullen and Seaton would rush in, hit the ball away, and dart out. Gaffney was a combination of all of the above and Bauman, well, let's just say evil Bauman in this dimension is exactly the same as evil Bauman in every dimension. He wiped out a lot of people. Or maybe it was that same silver haired guy with the glasses over and over. One tackle late in the match inside the box left the striker inert just long enough to make me think maybe he was unconscious...but then he twitched a little...then moved his leg...and then he staggered back to his feet. It was like watching Kirk and Spock fight to the death in "Amok Time", only without the duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH-DUH-DUH-duh-duh-duh! music. See Exhibit "B" - Bauman v. Old Guy, below.

Exhibit "B" - Bauman v. Old Guy

All of this left Burden free to pillage the Blitz right side and deliver his typical tasty crosses and gave McConnachie room on the left to get several good runs at the keeper. The forwards starting getting more shots and finally, on the hour mark, Radigan appeared to give somebody a Vulan nerve pinch and keep the wildly bouncing ball in play long enough for Muralt to deliver a volley of photon torpedoes into the Berserker planet killer, er... goal mouth. Their keeper went down but was too late on the take. 1 - 1 with thirty minutes to play.

Meanwhile, back on Deep Space Nine, Sean realized that with the score tied, if he screwed up and let in a howler, he would really suck...like pretty much every episode of "Star Trek: Voyager". Perhaps motivated to not let the ball come anywhere near their rookie keeper, evil Rangers patrolled our half like the freakin' Neutral Zone and continued their search and destroy missions with a vengeance. Evil Sean's first touch of the ball--maybe seven minutes into the half when their striker's first touch was too hard and the keeper was able to rush forward and sweep it up--was greeted with team-wide (heartfelt/sardonic) cheers. His second touch was a brilliant reflex save with his right foot to stop an onrushing strike on frame. His third touch was deflection to the outside of the post and his last four were comfortable catches to the torso...although the last shot at minute 87 was a bit nervy. That was it. His awesome bridge crew repelled every other boarder and pretty much wiped out the forwards like the Borg v. the Federation at Wolf 359 (Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1"...arguably the greatest TNG episode of all time.) Frustrated that they could not breach our shields, Blitz got all pissy and Referee Peter showed no hesitation to brandish the yellow. Evil Seaton gets additional props because he played the last ten minutes on cramped legs and Evil Bauman gets another mention for talking me through my inaugural goalkeeping experience and not letting me overthink it too much.

Then it was over. Three tweets from the whistle and the universe collapsed back onto itself, leaving Rangers with a 3-3-2 record, some nice farmer tans, and a potential Weekend Warrior blog post in the next week. Once again proving your collective awesomeness, I thank you for your incredible performance and bid you to live long and prosper.

By the way, some people think that Trek is for dorks. Some people think that Trek is a silly show with forgettable characters. Let me ask you this: If Trek is such a forgettable show, would it feature a character like this (see "Exhibit C - T'Pol [Jolene Blalock]") who looks like this? See "Exhibit D - Jolene Blalock [T'Pol]".

Exhibit "C" - T'Pol [Jolene Blalock]

Exhibit "D" - Jolene Blalock [T'pol]

I think not. Google her. It gets way better.

Match notes...Attendance was estimated at 12, with Blitz bringing a supporter's corps of 11...Evil Calkins was the Not-So Junior Ranger for the match...Of all the people at the MES on Sunday, the only four shorter than Keeper Sean were the children and babies on the sidelines...Team picture next Sunday before the match...

Next Match:

FC77 Rangers v. Green Dragons

Sunday, 7 June, 2:00 p.m. KO

Montessori Earth School

FC77 Rangers 8:1 Blitz

FC77 Rangers 8 - 1 Blitz

(Radigan 15', 50'; Foubister 25'; Muralt 55', 74'; King 60', 70'; McConnachie 82')

Before we proceed, allow me to introduce this match summary with a little theme song action. Feel free to sing along to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer":

You know Wolfhounds and No Subs

And Bridgetown and Azzuri,

Code Blue and Chaos

And Petro (now Blitzen)

But do you recall

The Greatest Men's Over-30 Third Division Football Club

In the Greater Portland, Oregon area of all?

FC77 Rangers

Broke their latest opposition's nose

And if you were there to see it

You would even say it was really gross.

All of the other men's teams

Used to laugh and call them names

They never let poor Rangers

Win any Division Three games.

Then one sunny afternoon

The referee was forced to say,

"Rangers with this score so trite,

Would you like me to call this game tonight?"

But how the home side declined,

As they score with impunity

"FC77 Rangers...never call the game earlyyyy!"

Rangers turned the Montessori Earth School into a bloodbath--literally--on Match Day Three of the GPSD O-30 Third Division Rose City spring season. With blue skies, a lush green pitch (albeit with some hard to discern field markings), and a comfortable complement of fifteen suited up, Rangers continued to claw and bash their way up the division table against "new" team Blitz...until it was recognized that Blitz was just the Team Formally Known as Petro Kickers. With the memory of their last visit to the MES undoubtedly still fresh in their minds, Petro--er, Blitz--was undoubtedly eager to avenge their previous 8-0 short-sided defeat.

That didn't happen. At. All.

Starting XI:

DeBar, goalkeeper

Seaton - Calkins - Snyder - Pullen, fullbacks

Burden - Radigan - Muralt - Gaffney, midfielders

King - Foubister, forwards

Reserves: Ingersoll, Vogel, Fahrbach, McConnachie

The away side started the match with ten players but within the first ten minutes found themselves fielding a full side...until a vicious mid-air collision with Calkins (channeling his inner Bauman as the first half sweeper) broke the nose of Blitz's second striker during an aerial challenge and reduced their numbers back to ten. Play was halted for almost ten minutes as first aid was rendered and Vogel's legendary water jug (a Rangers icon) was brought out to hose down the blood pooling at the top of the Division Street box. When play resumed, Rangers smelled blood--again, literally--and began an eighty minute assault on the Blitz goal mouth. Radigan came close immediately after the resumption of play with a monster header that was brilliantly saved by the Blitz netminder, but then got his name on the score sheet on fifteen minutes with a boot from about twelve yards out. (Sorry, Aaron. You deserve a better narrative than that, but there were so many goals I lost track of them...so many goals.)

Foubister doubled the lead on 25 minutes when he performed a brilliant stop-drop-and-roll maneuver with the ball from Burden's feed. Some would say that he stumbled on the ball when he tried to cut back on the defender, but I believe he will tell his grandchildren that the move was intentional to throw off his marker, who was flatfooted as the Scot wheeled back up and blasted a right footer past the keeper...thus saving him from eternal shame and ribbing for the rest of the afternoon. DeBar made a few saves when Blitz's Silver Fox (you know who I mean) got a sniff of goal and popped a shot from mid-range, but the keeper was comfortable for the first 45 minutes and gladly exchanged his gloves for a yellow field kit for the second half while Calkins minded the sticks.

2-0 is a good lead, some would say a comfortable lead. Reluctant to fall prey to the dreaded first fifteen minutes of the second half, 'Gers immediately went on the offensive and did their best impersonation of a Panzer blitzkreig through the Low Countries. (Get it? Blitzkrieg? Just checking.) The highlights included:

50' - Radigan receives a right side pass from McConnachie deep inside the opposition's box and absolutely crushes the shot at almost point blank range.

55' - Ingersoll releases McConnachie down the near side. McConnachie turns and fires a cross back to Muralt, who curls it inside the post.

58' - King opens his spring account with a thunder run.

68' - King gets a second after going one on one with the Blitz right back, shoulder checking him so hard everybody assumed the play would be whistled dead, marveling that it wasn't, and then cheering when King rips a kill shot inside the six to the near post. So angry, Ron. So angry. We likey.

74' - All that was missing thus far was a header goal, so Burden obliges with a lovely cross from the left, finding Muralt low in the box. The center midfield stalwart flicks the ball backwards with a fading header. Nothing but net.

80' - McConnachie bags the last home side goal with ten minutes from Radigan's assist.

Blitz got on the board and salvaged some pride with an 88th minute consolation goal. In all fairness, our keeper was distracted by the group of Latino children who were wanting to play with him while he stood alone and unbothered for extremely long periods of the second half. "Hola, el Sr. Calkins. ¿Jugará al fútbol usted conmigo"? Calkins was unbothered due to the relentless and dogged play of the fullbacks and holding midfielders--Seaton, DeBar, Pullen, Snyder, Vogel and Gaffney--who jousted (physically and verbally) with the Blitz attacks and kept most shots to distance. And of course, it wouldn't be a Rangers match without Seanny going wide with his shots, which he did. Twice. Some day I'm actually going to score and go absolutely ape-s**t crazy.

All in all, it was one of our finest performances ever. The passing was clinical and controlled. The hustle up and back was relentless, and that was probably the highest goal-to-shot ratio we've ever had. A fine match for a fine April afternoon.

Match notes...Attendance was estimated at upwards of 20, a season-high...the team enjoyed post-match treats courtesy of Becki and Kendall Ingersoll...Rangers now hold a career 24-6 goal advantage over Petro Kickers/Blitz...Ron Burden bravely saved the life of a Junior Ranger spectator by breaking his fall with his body when the tree limb the young supporter was perched in gave way...Did anyone notice my prophetic comment in the last match summary about an 8-1 score? Did you?

Next match:

FC77 Rangers v. Green Dragons

Sunday, 26 April - 12:00 noon KO

Montessori Earth School

Congratulations, 'Gers. You've Earned This.

As I await independent confirmation of the scoring details following today's 8-1 Blitzkreig (get it?  Get it?) in order to write the official match summary, please allow me to reward your efforts with additional photos of "our" very own Ranger Cheerleader, Marlina.  As a San Diego Chargers cheerleader, Marlina knows a thing or two about blitzes, broken noses, and playing in the sun. Enjoy.

Your manager hears your poll-related requests and wants to help out whenever possible. Match summary to follow.

Cheers.