Stage set for football finals
Good evening I’m James Adderly and you’re strapped in for another ride on Sports Monday. The BFL playoffs reached the end of the road in week 10 at the MCC Grounds for 2 archrivals. In the role of host Kulture Yabra looks to humble Grigamandala of Dangriga who are headed to the finals. Meanwhile Griga takes the field intent on grabbing the home field advantage in the championship round against Sagitun.
It’s a quick start for the south when defenseman Peter Mariano launches this long low cruise missile, but Willie Bo’s response is dead on target. Who raises the ball over the target is David “Manu” McCauley of Yabra on that feed from Esteban Hall and McCauley did have an open look.
Yabra attacks again, this time from the right side, when McCauley sets table for Paulie Bradley, who produces not enough pace on the ball to beat Stanley Reneau. Now keep your eyes on this centre from Warren Flowers, which finds the head of Francis “Bird” Flores and Grigamandala gets on the scoreboard 37 minutes in.
The Belize City team tries to come up with an answer immediately, but McCauley falls victim to a vicious tackle and would have to leave this ballgame not to return and at the half its a 1-zip Griga lead. Charlie Slusher, Yabra’s Head coach gave us this perspective on the ballgame.
James Adderly
“You came into this ballgame, not with your best team, is the focus not on getting the W for Kulture Yabra today?
Charlie Slusher, Head Coach, Yabra
“Well the focus is on getting the W, but it seems that…when you look under our bench and everything it seems that that’s not the action that is being performed, although we know that we need to win today for respect because we believe that we still have the best team in this league…in this year. Unfortunately we had some organisation problems and we couldn’t make it to the finals, but we accept that fact and we also know we learn from the mistakes and know the things that we need to do next year for Kulture Yabra to be more successful.”
In 2nd half action, Norman “Tilliman” Nunez replaces McCauley and makes his presence felt immediately with this right away volley, but he misses the goal. On this play, Francis Arzu shows an inability to use his head and indeed lets Willie Bo off the hook instead of increasing the lead for Dangriga.
At the other end is Paulie Bradley with the breakaway, but this light push is simply not enough to provide the equalizer. Downfield Dangriga searches for its 2nd goal of the match but today doesn’t seems like Arzu’s day to score.
If you don’t believe watch him direct this header away from the goal in crunch time and when the long whistle blows, it brings Dangriga a 1-zip regulation big W. It’s the first regulation win against Yabra.
Out west the other BFL finalist Sagitun, suffered a set back with a 2-1 loss to Real Verdes while up north San Pedro Dolphins showed up, but the home team La Victoria was no where to be found.
In the meantime the game BFL championship series gets off on June 4th at Dangriga who will be hosting Sagitun of Independence. In other football news, Yabra beats Napolis 2-zip at Corozal Saturday, to kick off the National Amateur 1st Division Football Finals, presented by the Belize National Football Association.
