Steaua F.C. scored early in their August 9th interdivision tussle with HU Blue at College of Du Page and managed to hold on for a 2-1 victory. The loss dropped HU into fifth place in the Blue Division, although they have games in hand against both the third and fourth place teams.
Steaua got on the board early as a cross from the left flank led to an own goal less than ten minutes in. Steaua continuously pressed HU for the next twenty minutes and missed numerous scoring opportunities. Despite the pressure, Hellenic United did manage to equalize at the thirty minute mark as a nice through ball from Goran Guzina found Zekail Gezafer all alone with the Steaua. The HU striker made no mistake and slotted the ball home to the keepers right hand side for a 1-1 scoreline.
Just when it looked like the half was going to end with a tie score, Steaua took advantage of a missed foul call and managed to create an opportunity leading to a close range strike from the right side which deflected past HU keeper David Barszczowski for a 2-1 visitor lead. Despite the missed call, the visitors lead was well deserved as they had created numerous opportunities in the first half and could have easily scored at least two more. HU's only other opportunity was a missed breakaway by fullback Jovica Nanic after an impressive solo run starting deep in the home team's own end.
"Steaua really took it to us in the first thirty minutes" said HU coach Andy Sotiropoulos. "They could have easily scored another two. They're a very good team that plays quality soccer-quick touches on the ball, intelligent runs off of it, good utilization of time and space. Nonetheless, I also think it was a matter of us not coming out ready to play. (Assistant Coach) Yiannie Moraitis commented to me before the match that it didn't look like we were ready to play. Unfortunately, he was right. You can't sleepwalk through the first thirty minutes of a match like this and expect to win against a team like Steaua. This match really put us behind the eight ball, because it resulted in a six point swing. Now we're getting dangerously close to the relegation zone.
I thought Jovica Nanic played his best game in an HU uniform. Absolutely flawless. He really created a lot of problems for Steaua with his overlapping runs and helped contain their very dangerous left sided striker. Too bad Jovi wasn't there for the first 20 minutes of the match or so, or things may have been different. I also thought Alen Malkoc was superb-again. I doubt there's a sweeper in the league playing as good or better than Alen right now. Unfortunately, we can't always rely on him to pull a rabbit out of his hat. Outside of those two though, I'd be hard pressed to find anything positive about this match. Even though we dominated the second half, I think that was just as much a result of Steaua getting tired as it was anything we did. Hopefully, we can right the ship this weekend when we play them at Olympic Park."
Line-Up
Barszczowski-Abraham, Dautovic, Mahmutovic, Malkoc-Pilat, Villanueva, Smjecanin, Guzina-Marks, Gezafer (Acamovic, Nanic)
Game Summary
1:1 Zekail Gezafer 30'