Well, forget all of that crap I wrote about FC Tampa Bay’s goal prevention. The Tampa Bay defense was porous all night, giving up chance after chance to FC Edmonton and not giving Jeff Attinella much of a chance most of the night.
Edmonton made the most of their awful playing field, a Canadian football field with turf that made the ball look like it was being played on concrete.
The first strike of the game would come in the 28th minute. FC Tampa Bay had numbers forward for a corner kick, but Edmonton won the ball and quickly counter-attacked. While the entire Tampa Bay club watched Edmonton ran a 4-on-2 and Kyle Porter gave the home team the 1-0 lead.
After Attinella made a wonderful save, Edmonton was given a corner kick in the 37th minute. Edmonton’s Yamada made an attempt at a mid-air volley but whiffed on the ball. Sanfilippo was unable, however, to clear the ball out of the penalty area and Yamada had time to get back up and put the ball into the net uncontested for the second of the night.
Attinella did his best in goal on the evening, including a stop of an Edmonton penalty kick, however those blasted Canadians caught the FC Tampa Bay defense off-guard time and again and took advantage when they did.
Shaun Saiko put in another goal in the 85th minute after playing a 1-2 around Tampa Bay’s defense right in front of the goal. The final tally would come on a beautiful (for them) curling shot from Edmonton’s Shaun Chin in the 88th minute right into the top corner of the goal, leaving Attinella no chance at the save.
FC Tampa Bay’s best chance came in the 53rd minute when a David Hayes cross was headed off of the post by Tsuyoshi Yoshitake then cleared by the Edmonton defense.
Injuries played a major part in this game as well. Warren Ukah was able to get off one shot before having his face demolished whilst challenging for a ball and was replaced by Pascal Millien in the 21st minute. Chad Burt would also have to be replaced early due to injury. This limited coach Ricky Hill’s ability to substitute players and pressed his son Shane Hill into duty.
All in all it was a fairly pitiful performance from a Tampa Bay squad which was far from home and playing just 3 days after their draw on Saturday against NSC Minnesota. They come back home this Saturday to host the Carolina Railhawks, a team which is dominating the rest of the NASL with a 7-1-1 record and +12 goal differential. That game starts at 7:00 P.M.