Hellenic United Athletic Club | Chicago, USA

Sometimes it is hard to understand what initiated such a collapse after the 70th minute of the game against FC Soccer Place this past Sunday that completely destroyed the decent effort put by HUAC up to that point of the game as they were only trailing 1-0 from a breakaway goal in the 27th minute vs the much more experienced and very talented Polish side.

Coach Yiannis Kosmas spoke to the players before the game and emphasized the importance of tight marking in defense, and for the midfielders to close down spaces and not leave their opponents alone as they are deadly with their outside shooting and for the most part, HUAC followed those instructions to the letter of the law.

Call it tiredness or just a lack of concentration in the final 20 minutes of the encounter as individual errors ( and everyone needs to accept their fair share of the blame ) brought this embarrassing score line to light.

HUAC started this game with a couple of changes in defense, a reshuffle of roles brought by the absence of Panousis and the surprise inclusion of Sakis Georgopoulos at right back who had his body break down once again and went off injured as early as the 8th minute with an apparent groin injury. This is another setback to this experienced player who can't seem to shake off all his ailments after being out of the game for a few years.

In the first 45, HUAC had issues keeping possession in midfield and failed to regularly supply their attacking duo ( Yanun, De Bogert ) as they would cheaply give away the ball.

On the other hand, the team kept its shape overall intact and made it difficult for FC Soccer Place to create clear scoring opportunities bar the 27th minute opening goal after they caught the HUAC defense napping.

This same pattern held true up to that dreaded 70th minute when the monumental collapse began, but unlike last week where HUAC did enough on the field to at least get a point from their opponents sadly today nothing could be further from the truth. As they barely troubled the Polish keeper who had a comfortable late morning and only had a few casual and fundamental saves to make from a Yiannis Kosmas and a Marcel de Bogert efforts. Andreas Kosmas also shot narrowly wide but that is about it from the offensive side. The rest of the time all HUAC moves fizzled out around 35 meters from goal and hardly put any pressure on the FC Soccer Place defense while on the other end it was constant bombardment for the HUAC back 4 which inevitably led to the crashing defeat.

These issues have to be addressed before next game and unless that center of the field improves their work rate and resiliency then most future teams will have a field day attacking at will and strolling through the team and exposing the defense.

Its pointless and almost unfair to single out any HUAC player after such a heavy defeat and to mention him as a possible MVP. Nobody deserves that accolade as every HUAC player had issues in their own right and even the usual solid and dependable leaders on this team had moments of shocking lack of composure.

Keeper Hatziaggelou should rightfully feel hard done with the lack of protection in front of him. He was not responsible for any of the 5 goals.

Yiannis Kosmas and Jimmy Kollias in unison told the players to keep their chins up and regroup and be ready for next weeks opponent- Stare Byki at home ( COD ) on 5/16/10 at 10.00 am.

Yellow cards to Alejandro Yanun for dissent and to Bill Javaras for a late tackle.