AssyriskaFF 2-1 Vasalunds IF: The winning feeling returns.

By: Luka | September 7th, 2009

Form is temporary, class is permanent.

That’s all nice and rosy, but I’d like to ask the person who coined this expression what the upper boundary of “temporary” encapsulates – 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years? The comfort gained from this seemingly reassuring expression generally goes out the window when you consider that question.

Fortunately, in the context of Assyriska Foreningen, it was never in doubt (ok maybe it was a little). We are a class team suffering from a bout of rancid (but temporary) form. This win, regardless of the circumstances, was the essential hurdle necessary to vanquish the gypsy curse hovering above the team which was preventing us from winning games (and causing us to lose games by some ridiculously big margins).

Goals:
1-0 Xhevdet Llumnica 26′
1-1 Thomas Carlsson 43′
2-1 Tiago Pereira 90′

Pre-match issues:

Coach Roberth promised two things:
(1) Changes to the team.
(2) Greater intensity.

He certainly kept his promise with regards to the team selection (natural given last week’s debacle and some missing players). Eddie Moussa and Lamine Conateh were left out due to injury/illness/crappy form, with Martin Lorentzon and Pierre Bengtsson (his first start of the season) as their respective replacements. Yes, you read correctly – Roberth played Lorentzon (a defender) alongside Llumnica. Half-man, half injured and other half (yes, I know) captain fantastic Goran Marklund gave the bench a warming today to everyone’s surprise, as did Tiago who would make an epic contribution later (way later) in the match.

Roberth, consistent with his promise, also changed the dynamics of the team – sending out a confusing 4-3-3 rather than our usual 4-4-2, with the likes of Lorentzon, Batan & Furuseth supporting lone striker Llumnica (try and work that one out). Unfortunately Vasalunds weren’t as confused as I was and kept us at bay for most of the match (then again, it wasn’t 3am for them).

I cannot definitively assert whether Assyriska really did show more intensity (or the usual levels of intensity expected) for a combination of reasons, including the fact that I had to refresh the page about once every nanosecond. Let’s just give them the benefit of doubt (influenced partly by my relief that we finally won again after so long).

First half:

From what I managed to see, we began the game with intensity and attacking intent (don’t we always). Stefan Batan, playing at left wing compared to his usual defensive role, was marauding up the field and threatening Vasalunds touch line as early as the 3rd minute. This was a recurring theme throughout the match. He was simply superb, ending up with a hand in both goals (and would have had a hat-trick of assists had it not been for our usual poor finishing).

The match just did not stream properly after those lovely opening 3 minutes, kind of reminding me of that Futurama episode where time keeps skipping forward – match freezes, I refresh, two minutes later picture appears only to pause again within seconds – repeat about 20 times. I began questioning life itself. Anywho, back to the football. The stream picked up in the 10th minute, just in time to see Nahir Besara timidly lose the ball in midfield. All of a sudden 3 Vasalunds were running at one Assyriska defender and eventually Özgur Yasar was put through one on one. The colossal Oscar Bergland got us out of jail though, repelling the shot for a corner with authority. Some time later (7 minutes to be exact) we were subject to another scare – this time a Vasalunds player hilariously skying his shot into the highway behind the goals from 6 yards out after some chaos in the box from a corner. By hilariously, I mean heart palpitatingly.

Now really, maybe it was the bad stream (possibly causing me to miss all of Assyriska’s chances) but it seemed Vasalunds were doing all the attacking – culminating in a goal being disallowed in the 24th minute for offside. Soon after Nahir Besara took offence to the scoreboard’s gestures behind Vasalunds’ goal, and aimed a shot directly towards it. He showed that rectangular structure who’s boss. Apparently Xhevdit Llumnica scored within minutes of this (masterfully assisted by Batan) – becoming our new top scorer in the process (with a stupendous total of 7 goals). [Random note: Scandic is one of our sponsors. *Childish giggles.*] Batan had a low drive saved by Vasalunds’ keeper in the 41st minute, and had Llumnica been a little swifter on his feet, he may have put away the rebound. Our opposition then did what the opposition usually does against us, and scored just before half time through Thomas Carlsson (the goal came from a counter-attack down our right hand side *cough* Frederik Samuelsson *cough*).

Second half:

Things happened, I lost all hope and was about to turn off my computer (I thought the game was over) only to take one final glance at the live scoring to see that Tiago had rescued us in the 92nd minute! As usual, we had controlled the entire second half, creating enough chances to win this game, next week’s game as well as the local ice hockey game down the street. Inspirational substitute Tiago also had a goal disallowed for reasons only known by the referee (and those lucky souls watching the game). The moment of the match was again initiated by the lively touchline magic of Stefan Batan (pictured, we love him thaaaaaaat much), feeding the ball to Llumnica who then put Tiago one on one with the goalkeeper, with the Brazilian making no mistake (he’s Brazilian, like he ever would).

Man of the match:

Coach Robbo – for finally daring to make some changes to the team and system (and because most of the players were pretty average). The jury is well and truly still out on him however.

Post-match reactions:

Coach Roberth felt overwhelmingly relieved.
- We talked a lot about running today and ignoring how it looks. Just enter and….show heart. We fought the whole way.
- The longer the match went, the more we let loose. We had a wonderful closing last 20 minutes.
He also praised Tiago for his late goalscoring exploits, saying – He is involved in three real dangerous chances. For the next match, he will have trained for two weeks, becoming even sharper

Vasalunds’ Per-Ake Swärdh took some time out from his melancholy to explain Assyriska’s altered approach – They had a high pressure on us which meant that we had difficulty getting any respite in the game. Further, he stated I do not know if it was intentional but Assyriska started (the second half) back home and gave us the opportunity to take some initiative.

Aftermath
The table looks like this. We will gain a clearer picture after everyone else has played.

*Special mention to our wonderful Zelge fans, who supported the team for the entire 93 minutes and even garnered the praise of coach Roberth, who revealsed that the players were speaking of their appreciation in the dressing room after the match. Truly the 12th man they were.

Tihe Assyriska!

And here is the winning goal by Tiagol: