Last Minute Heroics by Bracalello Salvage Point for Minnesota Stars
The Strikers Matt Glaeser stretches but can't reach Simone Bracalello's 88th minute free kick that helped earn the Stars a draw and a point. Photo by Jeremy Olson - Digitalgopher.net
It wasn’t the NSC Minnesota Stars’ worst game of the season, but it certainly wasn’t their best game either. In the end it took a world-class 88th minute free kick from Simone Bracalello to earn the Stars a 1-1 draw with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in front of 1,672 Minnesota soccer fans. It was the 2nd time this season the two teams walked away from a matchup with a point a piece.
That is one of the best goals I’ve seen in a long, long time at any level. You don’t get to see that in many places in the world. For those who got to see that live — unreal! What a great moment
Stars Head Coach Manny Lagos on Simone Bracalello’s game-tying free kick.
Few would disagree that Fort Lauderdale had the better game of the two teams. Stars head coach Manny Lagos was surprised at his team’s poor first half performance because the Stars had a good week of training following Minnesota’s home opener where they played their best soccer of the year.
“I think there was a lack of sharpness in the first half,” said Lagos. “We were making decisions in certain parts of the field where you have to make good decisions. Then you have to recover and start to work a lot harder and get stretched.”
Just a half-minute into the game the first of those poor decisions almost cost Minnesota dearly when sloppy defensive passing allowed Ft. Lauderdale’s Aaron Wheeler to picked off the ball and dribble in on goal. The shot was weak and made for an easy save for Stars goalkeeper Joe Warren.
The Strikers play caused several other turnovers but Warren was able to keep his team in the game until the 35th minute. That’s when a ball was played into the Stars box. Minnesota defender Jack Stewart seemed to be waiting for Warren to come out and pick the ball up off the bounce. When he didn’t, Stewart was forced to take action. He tried to shield the ball for Warren and both Nunez and Stewart did some shirt pulling with Stewart’s much more obvious after Nunez hit the deck with the defender’s hand clamped around the collar of his jersey.
A penalty kick was given and Striker forward Eduardo Coudet blasted home the first goal of the game putting Ft. Lauderdale up 1-0.
“The PK call is going to be a tough one,” said Lagos. “It’s two weeks in a row. But it’s also two weeks in a row that I can’t make an excuse for my guys. At the end of the day we have to not create situations were the referee may or may not make a PK call. One time OK, but two times… We have to figure out a way to be sharper and not get down, at home in particularly.”
Minnesota seemed to gain momentum as the game moved into the second half and had several good chances. ”I thought the adjustments in the second half and the guys that came in did make a big difference,” said Lagos.
Both teams used all three substitutions. For the Strikers, Brian Shriver replaced Coudet in the 68th minute, Jean-Phillipe Peguero subbed for Wheeler in the 75th and Scott Gordon replaced Paulinho LePetit in the 82nd.
While the Strikers made switches to keep the their lead, Stars coach Lagos was making offensive changes of his own in hopes of a point or better. Ryan Woods came in at the 57 minute mark replacing Ely Allen. Woods went to defensive midfield and pushing Neil Hlavaty up. Devin Del Do replaced Tino Nunez up top in the 67th minute and outside wide midfielder Amani Walker entered the game in the 80th minute replacing defender John Gilkerson.
For every shot Minnesota took there seemed to be a Strikers defender to knock the shot down. In fact the Stars took 6 shots in the first half with only 1 finding it’s way to Ft. Lauderdale keeper Matt Glaeser who replaced former Thunder keeper and regular Strikers starter Nic Platter. Platter hurt his ribs in the previous weeks games and sat out as a precaution.
“We were very organized tonight,” said Strikers head coach Daryl Shore as he assessed his teams performance. “That was one of the things we said from last week in Puerto Rico. If we don’t learn from our mistakes than we’re not going to get better. Tonight we were very solid defensively. The thing we told our guys is you’ve got to get behind the ball. We have to keep organized, disciplined and connected. Tonight we were. Every time Minnesota tried to break us down I thought we had an answer for them.”
As defensively tight as the Strikers were they once again gave up a late goal in the 88th minute as they have done several times this season. But it took a first class Bracalello free kick to break the Ft. Lauderdale defense.
Hlavaty drew a foul 25 yards out from the Strikers goal and Bracalello made sure his teammates knew that this was his kick to take.
“I was just really focused,” said Bracalello after the game. “I knew this would be one of the last chances for us. So I was saying, I have to score. I have to score. I cannot just make a good shot. I have to score.”
Bracalello took the shot with his right foot, curled the ball over the wall and into the upper left corner of the net with pace to beat Glaeser who didn’t have enough time to react after the ball cleared the wall.
When asked to describe the goal the Italian said he couldn’t because he didn’t see the ball go into the net, even though he knew he’d just tied the game in dramatic fashion. “I was just screaming. I was really excited,” recalled the Stars forward.
“We were just trying to close the game out,” said coach Shore. “We’ve had trouble when we’ve had leads of closing the game out and it’s something we’ve worked on all week. We kind of went to one forward and brought two guys back into the midfield to play more of a 4-5-1.”
“Look you have to give MInnesota credit because they keep coming at you, they keep coming at you then a guy hits a bomb on a free kick that there’s not much you can do about that. It was a foul. The referee made a call and it was the right call and the guy hits a free kick again. It takes a very good free kick to beat us on the night.
“This team was really hard to beat,” reflected Bracalello. “They are a good team. They play fast and they play the ball with a lot of passes. They also play hard, they push you hard – They’re physical. They have a good defensive and we didn’t really play very well offensively today. It wasn’t like our last match. But it doesn’t matter. It’s important that we take this point and think about the next match.”
Bracalello will not be playing in that next match at home against the Atlanta Silverbacks who have yet to get a win this season. The Italian forward received a second yellow card in injury time that caused an automatic red card expulsion and earned him a night off against Atlanta. Something he was not thrilled about.
“I really don’t want to speak about it,” said a frustrated Bracalello. “It’s the first red card of my life. Ten years I’ve played pro and never in my life…. I’ll just have to enjoy my teammates beating Atlanta.”
After the game Lagos couldn’t help reflect on Bracalellos free kick. ”Obviously you end the game in two ways,” said Lagos referring to the Stars goal and Bracalello’s red card. “That is one of the best goals I’ve seen in a long, long time at any level. You don’t get to see that in many places in the world. For those who got to see that live — unreal! What a great moment.”
Watch Simone Bracalello’s free kick that earned Minnesota a point.
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“That is one of the best goals I’ve seen in a long, long time at any level. You don’t get to see that in many places in the world. For those who got to see that live — unreal!”
On behalf of the internet viewing public: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGH
Didn’t notice the youtube there.
Yes, that was a very well-shot goal! Though I wanted the three points….
Yes, there was no stream of the game until about half way though the 2nd half.
The Minnesota Stars have contracted with the NSC to do the webcasting of the games. As most of you know, they did a fine job last season. In fact their broadcast were some of the best in the league except for those that had a local TV contract and used that feed for the game.
In the Stars home opener there was issues with the wifi internet connection. If you had an ethernet connection you were fine. This had NOTHING to do with the live stream, however. As I understand it they are separate lines and of course the live stream is hardwired.
They did some work on the lines this past week and evidently did not test it fully because when it came time to stream last night they could not make a connection. I don’t know all the details but I was told at some point they had to make a decision to record the game so others could watch it later of just continue to try to get the stream going. They pulled the plug on the steam and went with recording the game. After some time an IT guy finally showed up to the game and got the stream running.
It seems to me that the NSC should have an IT guy on call at all times for home games who is able to get out to the Stadium in short order should they have issues when the line is tested before the game or if something was to happen during the game. Yes, that’s expensive, I’m sure. But it seems important if your team and league is going to look professional.
Amani Walker deserves the start next week. When he entered the match, he did what every sub needs to do–make a difference–and he did. Coach Lagos would be well served to add him to the starting XI. Come on you Stars!
I agree that Walker made an excellent debut and was hustling around and was probably one reason why the pressure was on so much at the end of the second half.
I will say the officiating at this level has been unimpressive. The call that resulted in the PK for the Strikers was a bit questionable. He refused to call Ft. Lauderdale four times for grabbing the Stars jerseys but when the Stars do it in the box and the Strikers player takes a dive, he gives a penalty.
One other small minor technical issue the Stars need to deal with….there were three long crosses in the box that went to Rodriguez, one of the shortest players on the pitch. (I know he’s listed at 5-8, but I think that’s generous….he doesn’ t look that big on the pitch). He was easily outjumped on all three by the taller goalkeeper. If a taller player would have been in place it would have been much more interesting. No matter how you stack it, Rodriguez is not going to outjump anybody.