FURY FC PENS A HEARTBREAKER
Ottawa takes down visiting Nashville with extra-time goals to climb into playoff spot
A lot of great songs have been penned in Music City U.S.A., with a good many of them involving heartbreak, and the best ones making it all the way to No. 1 on Bob Kingsley’s Country Top 40 Countdown.
All the Ottawa Fury FC needed Saturday night was a guitar and some paper and they could have penned their own down-and-out, hard-luck, life-isn’t-treating-me-right hit about the visiting Nashville FC.
How about lyrics around a team that travels north to a foreign land, misses a penalty kick in the 81st minute, then thinks it has earned a hard-fought point, only to have the host team score two goals in extra time to send them home empty-handed?
For good measure, throw in something about the result driving them to drink to excess because most every country song involves a little drinking.
Is that sad enough for you? There could be tears in your beer.
The Fury FC did all that, erupting for goals in extra time by Tony Taylor and Kevin Oliveria to break the hearts of Nashville FC in United Soccer League action before a crowd of 4,267
... and another 300 or so on the great lawn watching Rebelfest.
The Fury’s busy month, now standing at six games in 22 days and counting, continues Wednesday at BMO Field in Toronto with the second leg of the Canadian Championship Series semifinal, the Fury FC trailing 1-0.
They then quickly return to USL action next Saturday afternoon against the Louisville City FC.
But the win over for Nashville was one to savour as the Fury FC climbed into a playoff position in the Eastern Conference. Coming into the match, only three points separated Nashville in seventh and Ottawa in 10th and on the outside of a playoff spot. Now they’re tied for seventh. “First of all, I have to be very proud of the players,” said Fury head coach Nikola Popovic. “We had a very crucial game against Toronto FC last Wednesday and to come back in less than 72 hours and do this ... we, in the organization, must all be very proud of how they responded.
“The penalty kick was unfortunate but missing it was the moment of the game and for us to respond with two quick goals, is very good.
“I thought the result 0-0 at the half was very fair. But I felt like in the second half, we were coming on and pressing them.”
The two teams did engage in an evenly-matched opening 45 minutes, with the Fury FC’s best scoring chance being a three-onone midway through the half that ended when Steevan Dos Santos lost control of the ball trying to make a deke past a Nashville defender.
Nashville held a wide advantage in time of possession, holding the ball almost 60 per cent of the time, though the huge discrepancy did not lead to many series scoring for chances with Fury ’keeper Maxime Crepeau called on to make just one save.
The trouble with Nashville is simply that they don’t give up much in the way of a path to the goal.
The club arrived in Ottawa having conceded just 11 goals-against through 17 matches, which works out to just .64 a game — the second-best defensive record in the league.
Fury newcomer Daniel Haber almost had his first goal in the 59th minute before failing to corral a feed that would have sent him in all alone on the Nashville ’keeper.
For 90 minutes, it appeared the contest would be goalless until the Fury caught fire in extra time with Taylor taking a pass from Jimmy- Shammar Sanon and then Oliveira scored off a turnover by booting the ball leftfooted into the goal.