The Footie Fool

Photo: Tajin Sacrifice Scene by Ilhuicamina. Used under Creative Commons license.

Once again, Canadian footie fans have had their hopes crushed as the Montreal Impact lose to Santos 5-2 (5-4) and crash and burn out of the CONCACAF Champions League. In the end, the dream turned into a nightmare. To think that at one point the Impact had a death lock on the series, leading the game 2-1 and the series 4-1 on agg. And then Santos came back and scored 4 unanswered goals, 2 deep in stoppage time.

I thought this might be an appropriate read today. From Footballs’ Greatest Comeback by Soccerphile.com.

Bayer Uerdingen – Dynamo Dresden 0:2 and 7:3 (1986)
Dresden were hot favourites ever since the draw paired them with lowly Bayer Uerdingen, which had upset Bayern Munich in the German Cup a year earlier. A team of numerous East German stars (Hans-Jürgen Dorner, Ulf Kirsten, Mathias Sammer, Reinhard Hafner, Ralf Minge, Torsten Gütschow and others) built a 2-0 lead in the first leg at home and then ran away with a solid 3-1 lead at half time, seemingly clinching the tie in the return game at Krefeld.

5-1 ahead on aggregate, Dynamo could afford to concede four goals and still progress to the semifinals, but what did anybody know of what was going to happen in the second half. Deep into the second half, to be precise. The 1-3 scoreline on the night still stood after 57 minutes and no-one alive could have imagined the shocking turn of events to come in the rest of the game.

It took a strange penalty to shatter Dynamo’s composure. The Icelander Gudmundsson won that dubious penalty kick, which Wolfgang Funkel converted and inexplicably confused the visitors. When six minutes later Gudmundsson himself made it 3-3, Dynamo panicked as if they still didn’t have a two goal cushion. Then the unlucky forward Minge deflected a shot into his own net, and the Easterners found themselves utterly disoriented amidst roars from the partisan crowd. Bayer attacked in waves and the reserve Klinger brought the temperature to boiling point with the fifth goal 12 minutes from time.

Dynamo were still ahead on the away-goals rule, but at the time it was clear they were not going to make it.

Schäfer was knocked down in the area and Wolfgang Funkel again scored from the spot, making it 6-3 only 23 minutes after the scoreboard had shown the humiliating 1-3. Before the final whistle, in the total confusion, Schäfer picked up the seventh goal, ending up on the shoulders of his mates and the fans who invaded the pitch.

And to think that no one in Bayer’s dressing room dared to think of a comeback during half time.

“We said to each other, ‘OK, we’re out, but let us bid farewell to the Euro-Cup with dignity. No-one will ever be able to explain how this turnaround ocurred,” said the coach Karl-Heinz Feldkamp after the game.

Dresden’s coach Klaus Sammer, young Matthias’s father, did not try to find an excuse in his son’s early injury or in the dismal performance of reserve keeper Jens Ramme, who came on for also injured first choice keeper Jakubowski. After such a disaster no excuses could do. To complete Dresden’s misery, their forward Frank Lippman left the hotel after the game and defected to the West, in order to play for Nürnberg and Waldhof.

Montreal, you have nothing to be ashamed of this morning. You fought and represented well. You gave us hope that that we can be more than underdogs – we can be contenders in this region. A tweet at the end of the game by D. Rowcliffe sums it up well:

Hold your heads high, Montreal Impact. You went toe-to-toe with the 2008 Mexican champions, and made Canadian club soccer proud.

Here is some blogosphere reaction this morning.

• Squizz at Some Canadian Guys writes A (surprisingly positive) eulogy for the Montreal Impact
• Duane at the 24th minute bemoans The same old story for Canadian soccer
• Ben Knight at Onward almost went home at the half.
• Joe Ross at The Footy Blog sums it up simply and elegantly with “well, that sucks”. And then goes on to add in some colourful analysis on Santos winger Carlos Darwin, “it was only fitting that he was the one who ripped the still-beating heart out of Limniatis’ chest by scoring BOTH goals in injury time.” Lovely Aztecan imagery, Joe.