Hellenic United AC | Chicago, IL

Hellenic United Blue came away with a 1-1 draw against Deportivo Colomex Friday, September 18th at Lake Shore Drive and Montrose. The match was a make up of the original game that was to be played at the beginning of the second half of the season.
 
Colomex got on the board first with what can be best described as a flukey goal. Goalkeeper Ogar Khoshaba appeared to have called off defender Firas Abraham on a corner kick that was dribbling towards Hellenic United's goal. Abraham let the ball roll past him, and then watched in horror as Khoshaba stood frozen at the near post while the ball rolled leisurely past him and inside the far post.
 
"I'm not sure I've ever seen that in all my years in soccer" said HU coach Andy Sotiropoulos. "I've never seen a ball roll in untouched directly from a corner. Ogar and Firas simply got their signals crossed."

National Soccer League powerhouse RWB Adria flexed its muscles in a convincing 6-0 victory over HUAC Blue Friday, September 11 in Cicero, Illinois. The loss was only HUAC's third of the season.
 
"The match was only 1-0 at the end of the first half" said HU coach Andy Sotiropoulos. "Granted, Adria had quite a few opportunities in the first stanza, but we were still in the game. They scored early in the second half, but we were still playing allright, all things considered. What upset me is that we totally lost our composure and fell apart in the last twenty minutes, conceding four goals. And it could have been worse. For some unknown reason, our back four decided to push forward with the score still 2-0, and we gave up four goals in twenty minutes, three on breakaways.  This team (Adria) is too damn good to do that against. They WILL punish you, and they did. We have to be smarter. A 2-0 scoreline is much better than 6-0 given that we're playing for a playof spot and goal differential may come into play at some point in the season.

Alen Smjecanin tallied twice for Hellenic United in their August 30 match against Gazelle, but it wasn't enough as the visitors came from behind on two separate occassions to earn a 2-2 tie.  The draw kept Gazelle's playoff hopes alive in the hotly contested Blue Division.
 
"This was a very good Gazelle team we played today, much stronger than the first time we met" said HU coach Andy Sotiropoulos. "I'm just disappointed we gave up a lead twice, especially on their last goal...we need to do a better job of communicating in the back. That last goal was a gift. This was a very winnable match, and yet we managed to complicate things quite a bit. A victory here would have put us in the catbirds seat with respect to the playoffs.
 
If Gazelle brings this same team to the rest of their matches, they're going to give a lot of people problems. They're physically the strongest team we've played all year."