Sunday 1 August 2010

Baz in boots

My first game of the new season yesterday, a friendly with Aberdeen and a day spent in the company of Aberdonian mates down for the day. Well, what a pleasant surprise - we outplayed them from the start, kept the ball on the floor as promised by Gus, and generally looked encouraging. Another screamer from Bennett, he doesn't score tap-ins, as they say, and a good time had by all. Apart from over 500 Aberdeen fans I suspect, a superb turn-out, they deserved better. I don't know if their side are any indication of an utter paucity of quality in the SPL, or if they simply didn't take it seriously, or what the problem with them was, but it could have been a cricket score.

We missed an absolute hatful of chances, which should worry me I suspect, but the truth is, if we finish 12th this season but play football like that all year, I'll be happy. We won't, of course, be allowed to play football like that all year. League One teams will close you down in three tenths of a second and kick anybody trying any fancy stuff up in the air at the first opportunity. But it'll be nice watching a team try to play football of a purity and fluidity which is often sadly lacking in England.

I am a bit worried for the oddly-prosaically named Argentinian new signing, 'Baz', who came on as a sub, sporting bright yellow boots, and proceeded to twice connect with bicycle-kick volleys which would no doubt have screamed into the net, setting it aflame, had they not both been blocked immediately. The germane point here is that he connected with them in the first place. If he thinks there's any place in League One for that kind of outrageous exhibition of technical abilities he'll be disavowed of such delusions pretty quickly by some of the more, er, 'agricultural' players in the division.

It's nice to feel so encouraged going into what will, praise be, be the last season at Withdean. As is always the case, and as I said I'd be guilty of falling victim to in an earlier post, the depression and rancour of the English World Cup failure is dissipating rapidly as the optimism and enthusiasm for the new campaign takes over.

Bring it on!

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