Imagine If He Had Started - Lewandowski Scores 5 Off the Bench

VfL Wolfsburg had to feel good at halftime yesterday, leading undefeated Bayern München, 1-0 in Munich.

Then Robert Lewandowski entered the match. 

Six minutes after coming off the bench to replace Thiago Alcantaro, Lewandowski took a pass at the 6 and tied the score.  A minute later he gave Bayern the lead for good from 20 yards out.  Then in the 55th minute came the hat trick, a goal that took three tries to score.  Again open on the 6, Lewandowski took a pass and hit the left post with a right-footed shot, hit the rebound off the keeper with his left foot and finally used his right to tap in the loose ball.

That wasn't his best goal of the match.  After scoring a (relatively speaking) mundane goal on a shot from straight away in the 57th minute, Lewandowski took a cross from the right touchline and vollied it in from the 18 with a scissors kick in the 60th minute. 

"You cannot be that good!" screamed the English-language announcer.

Andrew Das has the story of Lewandowski's amazing feat  - with a video clip of each goal - in today's New York Times.  He reports that this was the fastest hat trick in Bundesliga history and the first time a substitute had scored five goals. 

Lewansowski was quoted by Das as saying, "It was a crazy few minutes.  I'm very satisfied."  And Bayern coach, Pep Guardiola, who coached a guy named Lionel Messi at Barcelona, said "I don't think I'll ever see something like that again."  Probably not.

Fall Means High School Soccer

Haddonfield Girls are still looking for their first win after yesterday's 3-1 loss to non-conference Group 3 rival, Winslow Township.  Well, at least we scored our first goal of the year.

The Bulldawgs were blanked by Sterling, 2-0 in the season opener on Wednesday.  Yesterday was the home debut in the Haddonfield Stadium and when Winslow's heralded Taziarra King (featured a week ago in the Inquirer) rifled a shot into the upper right corner just 8:44 into the contest, it looked like it might be another long day.  To their credit, Haddonfield girls, who started three sophomores and three freshman, settled down and took control of play.

In the 30th minute the referees seemed to miss a call that would have given us a penalty kick, but 8:13 before the half freshman Wayden Ay found the goal and it was 1-1 at intermission.  Given our momentum and the outstanding goalkeeper we have in Taylor Sehdev (who is bound for my alma mater, Gettysburg College) things were looking good - until King took control and scored twice within 1:38 to put the game out of reach.

Collingswood is on tap in the stadium Tuesday night.

I didn't get to announce the game because the wireless mike was left in the school, but no matter.  I'll be that much more ready for Tuesday's game.  More important, so will the players.  Given the youth of the team and the outstanding coaching staff we have, I expect we will see tremendous growth and improvement all season.

As an aside, in the "I really feel old now" department, the assistant of Winslow is Wesley Roach, who played with Scott for the Medford Strikers for a year or two at U12 and against him for the Evesham Outlaws in some classic South Jersey Soccer League Premier Conference games back in the '90s.

Soccer in America - According to Carrard

Can't believe I haven't written anything in a month, but anyway, check out today's New York Times column by Juliet Macur.   It's about Francois Carrard, the Swiss lawyer named to heard FIFA's reform committee, and an interview he gave to the Swiss newspaper Le Matin.

All soccer fans in the United States need to know about Carrard is that he said soccer was "not a true American sport" and that “There, it’s just an ethnic sport for girls in schools.”  Macur wrote, "Let’s see him repeat those comments to Abby Wambach, Carli Lloyd or Hope Solo, or any of the other members of the United States team that just won the Women’s World Cup. Or to Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard, who helped lead the United States men’s team to the Round of 16 at last year’s World Cup. (That is the same round the Swiss men reached, by the way.)

Carrard’s words were fighting words, if fighting 77-year-old Swiss lawyers is your thing."

 

Basking in the Glow

Very cool to see the girl I coached from 8th through 11th grades holding the World Cup on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  Grant Wahl, arguably the country's top soccer writer (although Sam Borden and Jere Longman from the New York Times could make a case) wrote about Carli and her trainer, James Galanis.  I have known James for many years and recall meeting with him at the Medport Diner in Medford to discuss his becoming technical director of the club where Carli played and drafting his contract with the club.  Wahl tells the story of how he connected with Carli and motivated her to become the player she has.

Despite the fame that Carli has rightfully achieved, I suspect that she is still the same nice kid I remember.  May she and her teammates continue to bask in the glow of their historic achievement.

Carli In The Cartoons

I've gotten used to seeing Carli Lloyd, whom I have known since she was in 8th grade, be on television, score winning goals in big games from the Olympics to the recent World Cup.  But until today I never saw a player I had coached featured in an editorial cartoon.

That changed when Pulitzer Prize winning Philadelphia Daily News cartoonist, Signe Wilkinson, drew the cartoon below depicting Lloyd about to instruct Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie how to take a long shot - a reference to Lloyd's goal from midfield in the final against Japan.  That long shot resulted from great vision, quick thinking and an assessment of the risk of taking it.  Wonder if the governor will apply those same traits in his campaign.

World Champions!

It was really over by the time Carli Lloyd scored the third goal of her hat trick, just 16 minutes into the final.  When it was "only" 2-0, you thought maybe Japan will get organized, maybe get a goal before halftime, then come back in the second half to tie or even go ahead. Didn't happen.

Lauren Holiday made it 3-0 in the 14th minute, then Lloyd completed the hat trick with a wise decision: she saw Japanese keeper Aiyumi Kaihori out too far and lofted a long ball from near midfield past the startled goalie and into the net.  And then you knew for sure it was over.  Not a twinge of worry when Yuki Ogim narrowed the gap to three with a goal in the 27th minute.  It was over.

An own goal charged to Julie Johnston cut the lead to to two before Heath's score put it back at three. But it was over.

Coach Jill Ellis used two of her three subs to get Abby Wambach and Christy Rampone, each playing in her final World Cup, into the game.  In a classy gesture, Lloyd turned the captain's armband over to Wambach when she entered the field.  Afterwards it was Wambach and Rampone who accepted the cup foe the United States.

Jere Longman wrote the game story for the New York Times.

For the third straight match Lloyd was player of the match and she was rightfully awarded the golden boot as the tournament's MVP.

I'm very proud of Carli Lloyd and to have coached her way back when with the Medford Strikers.  Tonight showed what hard work and determination can do.

U.S v. Japan: It's Our Year

It all comes down to one game and that game is tonight: United States v. Japan in the Women's World Cup final, a rematch of the 2011 final.  But the realization that this is our year goes back to maybe the China game when the team picked it up a notch and continued through the semi-finals with a convincing 2-0 win over top seed Germany.

The Germans started out in control - for about 10 minutes, showing dazzling quick feet and pinpoint passing, but with nothing in the back of the net.  The U.S. received two breaks in the 63rd minute: one from the referee for not sending off Julie Johnston after a foul in the box; and the second from the tournament's leading scorer, Celis Saic, who sent the ensuing penalty kick wide left.  Nine minutes later a foul on Germany, which may have been outside the penalty area, led to a PK that Carli Lloyd nailed.

Lloyd has been player of the match in the last two games.

All this has brought a well-deserved round of favorable publicity to Lloyd.  Juliet Macur wrote in the New York Times after the victory over China, "In a significant way, then, with Coach Jill Ellis willing to tinker but not to renovate, this has become Lloyd’s team. As Lloyd showed against China, she can be the engine that makes it run at full speed and the leader who may decide how far it will go."

Today Macur wrote about Lloyd's former high school coach, Rudy Klobach, of Delran High School, whom I knew when he coached Carli in high school and she played on the club team that Joe Dadura and I coached. Sadly Rudy passed away back in January, much too early at age 70.
 

 People ask me about Carli and I tell them it never gets old seeing her play at this level, and especially the success she  has realized in this Cup.  I see the Facebook posts of our former Medford Strikers team supporting Carli and I know we will all be watching tonight - hopefully seeing her hoist the Cup.

My prediction: United States 2, Japan 1.