20406: Florestal: 20369: Vishnusurf Re: U.S. 1, HAITI 1 Florestal Adds (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Jean-Marie Florestal <sonice1953@yahoo.com>

I was also at the game on Saturday night, ironically
at the invitation of a Peruvian and a Brazilian, that
I enjoyed immensely. Particularly, I was surprised to
note the improvements of the team that I have not seen
played since at least two years.

The new coach must have done a good job. The team is
more disciplined than any Haitian team I saw in the
past, including the 1973 World Cup one. There were the
occasional desperate and impatient shots to the goal
from near the median line - which has less than a 20%
chance of scoring, my empirical statistics. But
overall, the team  relied more on building attacks
with #7, Coriolan supplying #11,Boucicot, #10,
Descollines and #9 Pereguo with attacking
opportunities, including the one that Boucicot  used
to score. I thought # 9, Pereguo, wasted a lot of good
opportunities to score, but he shows a lot of promises
with more training and experience.

Descollines' dribbles are spectacular, but he tends to
rush in passing resulting in many of them going to the
adversary's feet instead of a teammate.

In the defense line, #20 and #23 were impressive,
specifically in helping the offense on the right
flank. However, in the first half, they were too
vulnerable to counter attacks from the U.S. offense
forcing spectacular saves by the goalkeeper, and that
goal line saving header by one of the defenders around
the 45th minute of the game.

My take on the game is that Haiti had good control of
the midfield throughout the game and did not have to
resort to protecting the 1 goal lead. My personal
opinion in soccer strategy is that "the best defense
is attacking constantly, thus keeping the ball away
from the opposition." With the triangle of Boucicot,
Coriolan and Descollines, they could have kept the
pressure on the U.S. team which would have been enough
to avoid that last minute equalizing goal, thus
denying them the win.

The U.S. team, also my team but I had to support the
little guy here, did not play up to his potential,
with half their players taller than the whole Haitian
squad. Except for during corner and free kicks , they
did not capitalize on their sizes. In addition, their
midfield game was uninspiring, and often lost the
one-on-one battle with the Haitians at midfield, even
they were on average stronger than the Haitians. It
was very clear that the Haitians wanted to win the
game more than they did.

Now going back to Vishnusurf's comment, while the
Herald failed to mention the goal called I disagree
with his conclusions. The foul that denied them the
goal was caused by a charge of the Haitian scorer
while jumping over the U.S. player, which is illegal.
In addition, the five minutes added by the referee -
which made all Haitians suspicious of him because he
was Jamaican and Haiti is their next CONCACAF opponent
in June -  may have been less than the time the
Haitians took to fake injuries, including the novel
one of the goalkeeper wanting time to tie up his
shoes, which was granted by the referee. When he
wanted to continue that unproductive game he got a
yellow card. Clearly, the decision by the referee to
prolong the game was justified.

My conclusions are this is a talented team that shows
a lot of promises. We should encourage them to use
their talents and hard work their goals. At the same
time, we should discourage their  using excuses or
short cuts to win games such as to avoid a repeat of
the embarrassment caused by Ernst Jean-Joseph in 1974
in Munich, use of illegal substances. I look forward
to watching their next game.

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