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US ST GERVAIS v 1st XI 11th APRIL 2010
So here we are on a gorgeous sunny day down the road at hated local rivals St Gervais and their fancy new stadium. Last year I criticised their ground for not having floodlights for night matches but, keen readers of my web pages as they evidently are, I notice that they have put in some footings and the floodlights may well see the light of day in early course. They have clearly seen the light about playing matches on a Saturday night.
The weather isn't as nice as it looks though. There's a bitter wind roaring up the Combrailles today. Clearly the local radish harvest has begun.
In the opening stages of this match Pionsat are playing quite well. They win a throw-in and from the throw the ball is worked nicely out to the right wing. Jerome, the little no9, takes the ball on to the right-hand edge of the penalty area, looks up, spots the keeper off his line and goes for the lob over the top.
He's unlucky too - it's not too far off target and gave the keeper something of an anxious moment. He certainly had to backpedal towards his goal in in a hurry and if that had been on target he would have been beaten.
The openng stages of this match seem to be all Pionsat - they've gone forward relentlessly but have been caught out by a couple of offside decisions that many neutral spectators will spend a long time discussing.
This time they manage to beat the offside trap with a nice ball into the centre and Jerome again gets in front of the St Gervais defence and just manages to get a shot in. The keeper gets down well to it and scrambles it away.
Sooner or later, with all of the pressure that they have been having, it's no surprise that Pionsat score the first goal. There was a good interception by the Pionsat defence and a good ball down the wing to Cedric. He pulls the defence out towards him and then passes the ball into space in the centre.
Nico is lurking there all on his own with no defender around him. He runs on to the ball and puts it clinically past the keeper who has little chance.
Pionsat have deserved this.
Pionsat are still going forward and catch the St Gervais defence by surprise on the edge of their area. The St Gervais defenders try to play the ball out of trouble which is a little suicidal at this level of football as I have said on many occasions.
Of course they loose possession to one of the Pionsat players who gets a foot to the ball. He has a first-time shot but it doesn't really trouble the St Gervais keeper and goes right across the goal. Nevertheless it was a nasty moment for the St Gervais defence.
And St Gervais haven't learnt anything at all from five minutes ago and they are still messing around with the ball on the edge of the area.
The defence quite simply go to sleep at a vital moment and Jerome wins possession again for Pionsat. He breaks through the defence and tries his luck but the keeper gets down well to the ball and smothers the shot.
Fair play to Jerome for it was a good opportunity, but what price the little sidefoot in to Cedric? But apart from that, isn't Cedric's positioning in case the keeper fumbles the ball really excellent?
At half-time Pionsat go into the dressing room with a good lead. They could have had more than their 1-0 and I don't recall Matthieu in the Pionsat goal having had anything to do, due to a total absence of St Gervais attack. This is most unlike any St Gervais team I have ever seen. Usually they are a fiercely competitive bunch, especially against Pionsat.
In the second half Jerome who seems to be taking on the St Gervais defence single-handedly, has another go at the St Gervais defence. He finds a little space just inside the area and gets in a shot on goal but once again the keeper is equal to it and gets down to make the save.
But the lob over the top to the far post looks like a tempting alternative too, doesn't it?
He's having a good game, this keeper. He's keeping his side in the match all on his own with little help from anyone else. The rest of his team doesn't seem to be up to all that much.
And I'm struggling to get to grips with some of the decisions made by the referee here in this match. He's made a couple of decisions for which he's clearly seen things that I haven't seen and we've just had another that has totally bewildered me and the entire Pionsat team.
Two St Gervais players, a defender and the goalkeeper, go up for the same ball and they collide. The referee blows for a foul against Pionsat, when there wasn't a Pionsat defender within 5 metres of the ball and there was no sight of an offside flag. I just do not know what he saw that made him give that decision.
Franck, the Pionsat trainer, remains stoically impassive at this and tells his enraged players to calm down. I would have loved to have heard what the trainer of, say, AS Artonne or JS St Priest would have said if that decision had been given against their teams.
But talking of astonishing decisions, here's an astonishing goal - the best that I have seen Pionsat score for quite some time. And no wonder the St Gervais defender hangs his head and the goalkeeper looks so indignant.
The ball was played back towards the keeper at about chest-height and shadowed all the way by the St Gervais defender. But he lets his guard slip for just a fraction of a second and Nico who has been kept on the blind side of the ball, sees his chance. At full stretch with his foot at chest height he makes the briefest contact with the ball and changes its trajectory. That's all it needs to beat the advancing keeper and it's an excellent opportunist striker's goal.
And Nico almost has his hat-trick. He's again clean through the defence onto the keeper and again tries the shot. The keeper again blocks it and Nico recovers the ball.
He puts it into the centre where the no12 is lurking but he is caught in several minds and I'm not sure whether it's a cross or a lob that he tries, but in any case it goes miles over the bar.
And why is this photo so blurred? The camera (I'm still using the Pentax K100D" at the moment) is set on manual focus at almost full optical length and the settings haven't been changed.
But now I've seen everything and I'm scratching my head just the same as is everyone else from Pionsat (their own heads, I hasten to add, not mine).
About 15 mimutes ago Pionsat made a substitution and the no13 came on to play at right back. Fair enough, he committed two fouls on the no8 pretty quickly and that clearly caught the referee's attention (although the referee never said anything to anyone about it). A short while later these two players collided while going for the ball, and in my opinion it was no more than that - an honest attempt to get the ball. The no8 falls to the ground and holds onto the ball, and the referee shows a yellow card to ... the Pionsat no13.
Now if that wasn't bad enough, it gets worse. These two players are racing after the ball and the no8 wins it. The Pionsat no13 tries to take the ball away but catches the ankle of the St Gervais no8 but again it's a genuine attempt to play the ball with no apparent malice. The no8's response is to grab the no13 by the throat and throw him to the floor.
The referee's response is to show a second yellow card to the no13 who is of course now obliged to leave the field, and I've no idea why just the one foul which seemed to me in any case to be a genuine attempt to play the ball could be considered to be "unsporting conduct" or "persistent infringement".
Then the referee reaches into his pocket and shows the St Gervais player a .... yellow card. What I would like to know is why the referee considered that to be "unsporting conduct" and not "violent conduct", for which a red card would be produced.
For a few minutes after this St Gervais come to life and threaten the Pionsat goal, trying to make the one-man advantage count. Matthieu has to be alert and makes a couple of fine stops to keep out the St Gervais attack and keep his own team in the game but the storm is weathered and the clock runs down to the finish.
So it's always nice to win away from home especially against a bunch of hated local rivals, even though the aforementioned were clearly not on form today. But Pionsat played really well today and thoroughly deserved their win. It's also nice to finish a match on an element of controversy as it leaves you plenty to talk about until next week.
And now I'm off down the road to Charensat where the 2nd XI are playing . It was very kind of the Puy-de-Dome Football Federation to arrange these matches specially for me - the 1st XI kicking off at 13:00 and the 2nd XI in a neighbouring town at 15:00 giving me 15 minutes (less stoppage time) to make the distance.
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