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Photo Credit: Jojo Yanjiao Qian
The Wanderers Recap: Is This It?
By Forge FC has always been a thorn in the side of the HFX Wanderers. In the 21 prior matchups between Halifax and Forge, the Wanderers have won just four times, all of which have come at the Wanderers Grounds.
With statistics in hand, the odds were stacked against the Wanderers as they visited Forge to play in what is the 150th match in club history.
Game Recap:
When you write a report for every game for a specific team, it can, at times, feel like you are telling the same story over and over again. The team’s patterns of behaviour become apparent, and outcomes in games feel like Deja Vu. In past years for the Wanderers (and heck, even this season), the trend was giving up late goals to lose the lead or even lose entirely. Still, another painful trend for the Wanderers in the Patrice Gheisar era is that sometimes they get blown out even when they out-possess the other team and pass circles around them.
Ten minutes into the game and the Wanderers are moving the ball exactly how they want. The fullbacks are overlapping, inverting, and offering support in possession, Dan Nimick is using his right foot to switch play at ease, and Lorenzo Callegari seems like he has a system of tunnels under the pitch that allows him to pop up and receive the ball wherever and whenever he wants. The optimism metre was gently climbing.
Season Flashback: Nimick Says It’s ‘Do Or Die’ Time At Halifax
But then, in the eleventh minute, another pattern that has emerged reappears with Forge able to turn over possession and quickly create a chance for themselves. If that wasn’t clear, the pattern I am referring to is the Wanderers struggling mightily when they turn over possession after long stretches of possession. It is as if they are a second late to switch into a defensive mode, and by then, it is already too late. In this instance, Forge didn’t score, but it was a warning shot to the team (they have had enough warnings about this issue).
Then, in the 15th minute, the Wanderers decided not to heed the warning shots from Forge and completely came apart, with Loughrey and Nimick losing track of Kwasi Poku, and Poku making them pay with a good redirection that snuck past Fillion.
In a note unrelated to the Wanderers, how long does Kwasi Poku need to play like this before teams from other leagues take notice and get their chequebooks out for him? He is unguardable right now, and at just 21 years old he should be the most expensive sale in CPL history.
Returning to the game, the Wanderers showed great resilience immediately after the Forge goal, continuing to play as if they wanted to bury Forge. The ball was moving quickly all across the pitch, and seemingly every player was getting into the mix. But, for all of this incredible organization and tactical strength the team was showing, when they didn’t have possession of the ball, it was as if they were down a man or two on the pitch, with Forge finding as much space as they wanted on the ball. This porousness in defence is what led to the second goal, as the defensive line got caught out, leaving Dan Nimick in a one-on-one defensive situation, in which he, unfortunately, lost his footing, eventually pulling down Forge player Nana Ampomah and giving Forge a penalty.
It could be karma for earning three penalty shots last week against Valour that the Wanderers would give one up to Forge. In fairness to Yann Fillion, he made a great stop, but sometimes luck isn’t on your side, and the ball bounces straight back to the attacking player. When you are an in-form striker like Kwasi Poku, the ball falls to your feet in the best spots, and he hasn’t been wasting chances.
At this point in the match, with 60 minutes left to play, it was almost easy to forget that the Wanderers were down two goals. Outside of the 30 or so odd seconds in which Forge scored their two goals, the game had been played with the ball at the Wanderer’s feet and inside Forge’s territory.
For the next forty minutes, the Wanderers were all over Forge, creating chance after chance to cross the ball into the box, but time and time again, the Wanderers found themselves millimetres away from making the correct connection on the ball and squandering their chance to pull themselves back to Forge. Then, in typical Wanderers fashion, they had arguably their best 10 minute stretch of the game and in an instant, Forge flipped it on them and scored a third.
As you can see in the video, the team is in disarray out of possession (I don’t blame them this time; the best teams in the world get caught out on the counter when they push so high up the field in an attempt to come back in games).
At the beginning of his time with the Wanderers, Patrice Gheisar spoke about his style of football. To summarize, he stated that his teams score a lot of goals but can sometimes be vulnerable on the counterattack because he likes to commit so many bodies forward. And unlike so many people in sports, he has kept his word.
3-0 Forge FC, Wanderers lose their seventh game of the season.
Standings:
The good news is that the Wanderers still have exactly half of their season left to play; the bad news is that the Wanderers only got 13 points in their first 14 games. As of July 27, the Wanderers are seven points off of the final playoff spot which Vancouver FC holds. Vancouver FC has played two more games than the Wanderers. However, Pacific FC is six points ahead of the Wanderers but has played the same number of games as Halifax. It isn’t an impossible gap to close, but the available margin for error is getting smaller and smaller.
Milestones:
As mentioned above, this match marks 150 matches in Wanderers’ history. While bringing professional soccer to Halifax has been one of the biggest gifts to the city in recent memory, the on-field product has been hit and miss. In those 150 matches, the Wanderers won 45, drew 44, and lost 61, which amounts to 1.19 points per game: this is a tough figure for Wanderers fans to see. The appointment of Patrice Gheisar and the club’s outstanding last season led to immense optimism around the club, but things have gone badly this season. While there are 14 matches left for the club to play, it is becoming increasingly likely that this team will miss the playoffs for the fourth year out of six seasons.
Next Match:
The Wanderers will have another long wait to fix their woes. They will have to wait until Monday, August 5th, to take on Vancouver FC at the Wanderers grounds. The last time the two clubs met was on the West Coast, where the Wanderers took all three points with a commanding 4-0 win.
1 Comment
Well, maybe next time will be the first time we beat Forge on the road.
The margins for error this season are getting smaller, yes, but nothing’s concluded yet!