Photo courtesy of Cintia Freitas
Huskies saw their hopes of winning the gold medal at their first ever national championship come to an end after a 3-0 quarterfinal defeat to the Douglas Royals.
This is the first time in their history that the Huskies’ men’s soccer team has qualified for the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National Championship.
Due to the structure of the competition, the Huskies would now only be able to compete for the bronze medal going forward in the tournament.
Huskies have only their poor finishing and lackluster performance in the final third to blame for not taking control of the game in the first half and going on to lose the contest in the second half.
Huskies forward Christopher Badibengi found two opportunities in the first half to put his team ahead, but he couldn’t apply the finish on either occasion.
Badibengi’s first chance came through a fast counter-attacking move as early as the seventh minute of the game, when Abubakar Hussein found some free space for a run on the left flank to get at the end of a long ball and crossed it into the box.
But Badibengi missed the target and shot over the crossbar.
Badibengi’s second chance was an even better one, right before the end of the first half when he was one on one with the Royals goalkeeper.
A nicely weighted pass from Alon Steinbach found Badibengi, and even though he got away from the charging goalkeeper and had an open net, he took too much time and failed to take a shot as the Royals defenders caught up with him.
This was the closest that Huskies came to scoring in the entire game.
Up until about the 25th minute, Huskies pressed well and closed down spaces when they lost possession.
During this passage of play, they also looked the more promising side going forward. However, their energy seemed to fizzle out a little bit towards the end of the first half.
Both sides seemed to struggle in the final third of the pitch in the first half and relied mostly on long balls. Neither side could stamp their authority in midfield in the first half to assert their command over the game.
The Royals did not find any real chances till the 52nd minute when a ball from the edge of the box found one of their attackers and he headed toward the goal, forcing a save from Huskies goalkeeper Aubrey Lowe, who demonstrated good reflexes.
However, Lowe did not have any answers for the next header that came his way minutes later.
Royals midfielder Mohamednur Ibrahim broke the deadlock in the 56th minute with a header when Huskies were sloppy in clearing the ball from in front of their box.
The Huskies’ defense failed to deal with the cross as Tiago De Jesus misjudged the flight of the ball and Yusuf Jama made no attempts to attack the ball on its way to Ibrahim.
This proved to be the turning point in the game. After scoring, the Royals looked more and more threatening in front of the goal as the game went on.
Royals forward Rozmehr Aghabaygy doubled the lead in the 75th minute when his long-range shot – which looked more like a pass into the box than an intended shot on goal – missed everyone and took an awkward bounce right in front of Lowe, ending up in the back of the net.
The second goal seemed to take the wind out of Huskies’ sails as they had only 15 minutes to score at least 2 goals to be back on level terms.
In the 85th minute, Royals scored a great team goal, their 3rd and final of the night.
Huskies lost the ball in the middle of the park due to high pressing from Royals and they made the most of winning the ball.
Royals forward Mattoe Falcone back-heeled a great through ball to set substitute Ayman Sahmuddeen on his way past the backline, who then provided an assist for another substitute Duncan Bates who netted the ball with a clinical finish.
Royals will now face St. Thomas in one of the semifinals.
