MAZARRON FC 2 A.D.PLIEGO 2
As they say in the best of footballing circles – a game of two halves!
The game, preceded by a minute’s silence, started fairly slowly with both sides probing carefully. Mazarron, as ever, using just the one main target man – Tolo, with Diego assisting alongside. The more measured attacks coming from Pliego, who always attacked with 3 or 4 players in the vicinity of the Mazarron penalty area.
From an early free kick to Mazarron, Tolo shot wide of the Pliego left hand post. However this was countered by a Pliego free kick which resulted in a free header to the Pliego attack – fortunately the header had no power and Conejo gathered safely. So it continued for the first 25 minutes or so with both sides trying to find a way through, with Mazarron starting to penetrate the Pliego defence with long, raking passes for Tolo to run onto.
In the 27th minute Antonio Jose made an excellent tackle to stop a quick Pliego breakaway, which resulted in a throw-in near the corner flag, from the resultant throw another visitors attack was repelled twice by excellent saves from Conejo and a block on the Mazarron goal-line leading to Pliego’s second corner of the match.
The corner came across and was headed out by the Mazarron defence, but it fell to the Visitor’s number 21 whose shot looped over the Mazarron goal minder and into the corner of the net.
0-1
Further disaster was to strike 2 minutes later when a Pliego attack down the left wing reached the by-line but was crossed low across the Mazarron goal area for it to reach an unmarked Pliego player who calmly pushed it into the net. Cue Mazarron heads to drop.
0-2
It wasn’t until the 35th minute that Mazarron recorded their first corner. But worse was to come in the 44th minute after some ‘handbags at dawn’ in the Mazarron penalty are both teams had a player booked – for Mazarron it turned out to be Alfonso the captain. The Pliego corner came to nought, but it was the resultant Mazarron breakout that was halted by Pliego foul just inside their own half.
Alfonso shaped to take the free kick, but was told by the referee to wait for his whistle; however Alfonso decided the better advantage was to play it quick, and when the referee told him to wait and take it again it seems Alfonso questioned his parentage or something similar and was booked for his troubles. Having only recently received his first yellow card this led inevitably to the red being shown and Alfonso trooped off!
Mazarron clearly were relieved to get into the dressing room at half-time. What was said is still between the four walls and the team; but the start of the second half saw Mazarron with their tails up!
Just a few seconds after the restart Mazarron attacked and during the melee in the Pliego penalty area the referee pointed to the penalty spot after a foul on a Mazarron player. After furious protests from the Pliego players Tolo stepped up and struck the penalty to the left of the Pliego goalkeeper and into the net.
1-2
One minute later on the next Mazarron attack, following a long ball from the defence to Tolo, Tolo was fouled on or near the penalty area. The referee initially gave a free kick on the edge of the penalty area – only for the linesman to indicate that the foul was inside the box and so the referee then gave a penalty! Cue pandemonium in the Pliego team which resulted in some further bookings for Pliego.
Up stepped Tolo for his second penalty in as many minutes and this time put it to the right of the Pliego goalkeeper and into the net.
2-2
Now you’d think that after two penalties you couldn’t get any further controversy, but there was yet another penalty appeal only a further two minutes later in Mazarron’s next attack, where a Pliego defender clearly handled the ball – but the referee decided that to give a third penalty in 5 minutes might lead to some serious scenes with the visitors team, so he waved play-on! Those supporters sitting around your reporter were convinced that this was the clearest ‘penalty’ of the three!!
The rest of the half saw 10-man Mazarron clearly looking to win the match, with Pliego on the back foot for a lot of the time. Shots by Tolo, Diego and Enrique all went wide of the Pliego goal
There were some further Pliego attacks but on the whole the Mazarron defence coped well; and after 3 minutes of added on time the referee called a halt to proceedings.
Full-Time: 2-2
Team: Conejo, Lorca, Dani, Antonio Jose, Said (Chema), Enrique, Alfonso, Israel (Manu), Diego (Mateo), Tolo (Javi), Liders.
Summary:
Mazarron did not particularly play well especially in the first half. However, their second half commitment was good to see, and perhaps they did eventually deserve a point. The better football was played by the visitors who committed more players to attack when they had the ball.
Mazarron rely far too much on the long ball to Tolo whose control and judgement about when to move the ball to another Mazarron player sometimes lets him down; and Mazarron need to commit more midfield players to attack when they have the ball.
Thanks to Tony Jarvis for this excellent report
