The Legends had a decent sized squad available in Sunday, but were also fortunate in that key players were available.  With mediocrity assured regardless of the result, Legends Management decided to go back to the experimental 4-2-3-1 they had tried to some success back in the Autumn.  The key was having 3 mobile defensive midfielders and a strong defensive base, but as feared as soon as the game started several players clearly appeared confused about the concept of a formation other than a 4-4-2.  Within a few minutes it was just 2 players pressing the Shamrock back line as opposed to the 4 that the formation was designed to free up.  Most of the action remained in the center of the pitch as neither side seemed able to create concrete chances.  Frazier appeared eager to display his defensive chops in a debut in goal for the Legends, although with a strong back line in front of him he didn’t have much to do.  The first half saw the Legends limited to a couple of chances, Pattinson lifting a chip a little too high over the onrushing keeper and then hitting a shot bereft of curl from the outside.

As the second half started it looked like the Legends 4 substitutes could make the difference as the heat started taking its toll along with the hard new surface rending every hard tackle in a bloody scraping.  The Legends kept probing the Shamrocks high line as the referee appeared to be actually paying attention to the offside rule, calling it when necessary but letting it go as needed.  The politicking by both sides was entertaining but the referee appeared more than equal to the task.  In the end, the sole goal arrived via slapstick methodology.  Harrison won the ball and after shaking off some hard tackles hit a hopeful ball into the area.  The defender went to the ball then assumed the keeper would pick it up. The keeper was looking at the defender as the ball gently bisected both of them.  All of a sudden Mckeown aroused from his slumber and lumbered forward to gleefully (temporarily) finish his Legends career with a final game winning goal.

All in all not as bad a season as it seemed in patches.  There were several good wins over traditionally strong sides, and the team did well to finish right in the middle given the increased quality of the league and despite playing in the significantly tougher division.

Competition: Shamrocks SC Legends, League Opposition

Location: Randall’s Island #74, Randall’s Island

Conditions: Very warm spring morning

Fans: 0

Result: 1:0 HT: 0-0

Goals: 1-0: Mckeown Assist Harrison

Yellow Cards: Putting Frazier in goal had the added benefit of reducing his interactions with anyone else including the referee.  This resulted in a rare booking free game.  Rosenbloom meanwhile had a quick early booking, but despite some hard fouls later on this would serve as the only booking of the match for the Legends.

Red Cards: None.

Mike D’s aka No Shows: Fortunately none.

Conboy’s aka Reverse Mike D’s: None.

”Mr. Glass” Fragility/Old Man Injury Award: Morales came off hurt in the second half but fortunately the team had enough in reserve.  Many people suffered from bleeding cuts though from the new harsh surface.

Old Man of the Match: Another good game by the team.  Although it was tight, Simon ‘Harry’ Harrison edged ahead with his physicality and defensive prowess, also claiming a fortuitous assist.

Old Man of the Bar: No single individual here but a great overall performance.

El Presidente (Old Men who don’t make it to game but come to the bar): El Presidente Faherty made an appearance despite the grueling work schedule to bid a post game adieu to Mckeown.

Statistic of the week: With the season over there were no major new statistics in the last game, although Venkataraman finished only his second ever CPR season since 2000 without a goal.

Team Bar Showing:  7 out of 15 (47%)

Team Bar Night: 4.5 out of 5. The best post game shenanigans for a while, with not just the usual suspects spending a good amount of time at the pub.  Just when things appeared to be winding down, both the Oranges and the Women’s Whites showed up to add some more levity to the proceedings.

Team (No new profiles this week): Tim Frazier (GK), Mark Resnik (DF), Manohar Venkataraman, Simon Mckeown, Tom Pattinson, Manuel Casanova, Santiago Morales, Steve Teesdale (DF), Steve Roberts (DF), Oli Roberts (DF), Luciano Belizan (DF), Pete Hahn (DF), Simon Harrison, Bevan Rosenbloom, Mike Conboy

For a lot of the season the Legends have been feast or famine when it came to squad size.  On this day against one of the stronger teams in the league, it was famine. Although the Legends have been worse off before, they certainly weren’t in good shape with a bare 12, no regular keeper and many members the worse for wear following Cinco De Mayo / Red Bulls NYCFC Derby / Kentucky derby the day before.  America looked very well prepared, even doing organized drills before the game as CPR looked on in weary bemusement.

The Legends lined up their group as best they could given the players who had shown up, and for awhile they were able to stay compact and move from side to side in their half of the field to keep America at bay.  Unusually for a team at this level, America remained patient and were content to play the ball around, probing to find weaknesses.  There was only so much the Legends could do however, finally being undone by a long ball that caught out the goalie and defence providing a simple chip finish for the first goal.  Soon after that the best defender for CPR was proving to be the crossbar as the ball clattered against it no less than 3 times, with a 4^th having been already disallowed for off side.  The Legends single substitute was just not enough as the team started wearing down and were no match for the slick passing America who started carving up the Legends at the back. Although this wasn’t the debacle it was against the NY Greeks, the sense of inevitability remained as CPR were physically overwhelmed by fitter, quicker opponents.

At half time down 4-0 there wasn’t much to say, but adding injury to insult Casanova wasn’t able to continue which meant it would be no substitutes for the second half.  As America sensed blood in the water spaces opened up in the back but the Legends didn’t have the speed to take advantage.  The opposition were certainly top heavy and CPR lamented the lack of a full squad to take more advantage of the errors at the back, consoling themselves with a single poor throw-in which led to a well finished shot by Frazier to prevent the shutout.  Speaking of Frazier, he continued to endear himself around the league by his customary unnecessary hard fouls and constant vociferous complaining leading to confrontations with the opposition and the referee.  This culminated in a hard shoulder to shoulder charge which brought the game to a halt as the referee yelled at everyone around him as the Legends either confronted the referee or slunk away in embarrassment.  Fortunately things calmed down and the opposition didn’t take it out physically on CPR, content to keep trying to get on the scoresheet.  The final indignity was self inflicted by the Legends, a needless defensive pass to the goalie outside the box resulting in a pass to the opposition at the top whose simple long chip made it in for the last kick of the game.

With one game remaining, the Legends hope they can salvage something to provide a platform for next season.

Competition: America FC 1927, League Opposition

Location: Randall’s Island #82, Randall’s Island

Conditions: Warm spring morning

Fans: 0

Result: 1:7 HT: 4-0

Goals: 1-5: Frazier

Yellow Cards: Back to regularly scheduled programming.  Frazier went ballistic after some fair physical play and then spent the rest of the game teetering on the edge of being sent off.  He was fortunate that a couple of the other Legends distracted the referee long enough to turn his ire off of Frazier.

Red Cards: None, fortunately.

Mike D’s aka No Shows: This was a tough day for Mike D’s.  Conboy’s child was sick on a day we could definitely have used him.  Edmunds was a ghost of his former self, having puked out most of his physical self on the walk to the game.

Conboy’s aka Reverse Mike D’s: Fortunately, Teesdale was able to delay his work until the afternoon.  Hodges managed to make it as well, both giving us notice the day before.

”Mr. Glass” Fragility/Old Man Injury Award: Casanova’s tights weren’t tight enough to prevent him from suffering a calf injury at the half that prevented any further involvement.

Old Man of the Match: A tough day against a patient team.  Pattinson was his usual calm self in the center of the field and Steve Roberts tried to marshal the defence as best he could.

Old Man of the Bar: After a fun Cinco De Mayo it was difficult to expect too much longevity, but 3 hours was more than reasonable especially with the traffic fiasco following the 5 borough bike ride.

El Presidente (Old Men who don’t make it to game but come to the bar): Walby brought his kid along to watch Liverpool Chelsea, although eventually wishing he hadn’t.

Statistic of the week: Maybe statistic of the week should become weekly statistic.  Frazier with 12 career games and 12 career bookings.

Team Bar Showing: 7 out of 12 (58%)

Team Bar Night: 3.5 out of 5. Good depth for a change, half the crew making it back to the pub.

Team (No new profiles this week): Mark Resnik (GK), Manohar Venkataraman, Simon Mckeown, Tom Pattinson, Manuel Casanova, Santiago Morales, Tim Frazier, Franco Denari, John Hodges, Steve Teesdale (DF), Steve Roberts (DF), Mark Edmunds (DF)

For a second consecutive week the Legends were able to bring out a strong squad with strong numbers. They would be playing an Eintracht squad that had been somewhat Jekyll and Hyde this season, sprinkling in good results with thrashings.  The Legends were taking no chances and were aiming to put pressure on right away.  With several substitutes there was no excuse for lollygagging and the plan to aggressively press started to play dividends.  As has also happened recently, the Legends were able to make the simple passes and keep possession, fighting hard to avoid the temptation to go for a 30 yard pass when a 5 yard pass would do.  Quickly passing the ball around paid dividends early as they opened up Eintracht to leave Mckeown open in the box for the simplest of finishes.  Eintracht were playing with a high line, but the outside speed of Frazier and Conboy really put them to the torch along with a referee who seemed to actually pay attention to the offside rule.  A couple of times the Legends sprung the offside trap only for poor finishing to negate the tactic.  However one person who couldn’t be accused of poor finishing was Denari, taking the ball from an acute angle and powering it right through the robust goalie.

At half time the Legends were urged to keep the ball on the ground and slide it thought to beat the offside trap rather than lob the all over the top.  The first 20 minutes were simply one way traffic with the ball constantly in Eintracht’s penalty area.  There were a variety of misplaced passes, a bad miss from Venkataraman continuing his barren spell and an astonishing miss from Frazier missing an open goal from 3 yards out.  Frazier managed to atone quickly with a good finish a couple of minutes later soon followed by a majestic top corner lob from 30 yards from Conboy.

Despite being on the edge of a thrashing, Eintracht valiantly refused to concede and kept attacking to the point of pinning the Legends back.  Perhaps CPR took their foot off the gas, perhaps they were surprised by the opposition’s refusal to quit.  They conceded a goal and then had difficultly putting the pressure back on. The chances dried up and the ball stayed in the middle of the field.  The Legends were somewhat disappointed to not score a few more, but its hard to quibble with a 4-1 victory in a league that has improved in leaps and bounds over the last few seasons.

Competition: SC Eintracht, League Opposition

Location: Randall’s Island #74, Randall’s Island

Conditions: Lovely spring morning

Fans: 0

Result: 2:0 HT: 4-1

Goals: 1-0: Mckeown, Assist Conboy

2-0: Denari, Assist Casanova

3-0: Frazier, Assist D’Andrea

4-0: Conboy

Yellow Cards: A momentous occasion as apart from one loud outburst Frazier managed to focus his energies into staying productive but avoiding a booking for the first time in his CPR career.  Having a good referee who calmed things down certainly didn’t hurt.

Red Cards: None

Mike D’s aka No Shows: Hahn was a late scratch but the squad had large enough numbers to withstand that.

Conboy’s aka Reverse Mike D’s: Carducci’s arrival as goalie was more than welcome.

”Mr. Glass” Fragility/Old Man Injury Award: None.

Old Man of the Match: A very tough decision that came down to one vote. There were several solid performances but a productive game with a superb goal by Conboy was narrowly bested by yet another accomplished appearance by Belizan at the back.  His speed and reading of the game allowed Oli Roberts to be more robust against other defenders and allowed the midfielders to roam a little further forward to support the forwards.

Old Man of the Bar: A throw back night that included not just the sponsor bar Blooms but an impromptu visit to say goodbye to neighbourhood stalwart Macaleers.  Tier 1 Venkataraman and Resnik both put in veteran performances.

El Presidente (Old Men who don’t make it to game but come to the bar): None.

Statistic of the week: One of the oddest statistics in Legends history, but Frazier’s consecutive booking streak finally ended.

Team Bar Showing: 5 out of 16 (31%)

Team Bar Night: 3.5 out of 5. A long enjoyable stay at Blooms followed by an appearance at Macaleers. The only thing missing would be a couple of other Legends along for the ride.

Team (No new profiles this week): Mike Carducci (GK), Mark Resnik (DF), Oliver Roberts (DF), Luciano Belizan (DF), Willian D’Andrea, Bevan Rosenbloom (DF), Manohar Venkataraman, Simon Mckeown, Tom Pattinson, Manuel Casanova, Santiago Morales, Tim Frazier, Franco Denari, John Hodges, Mike Conboy, Steve Teesdale (DF)