Fury take care of important business at home
FURY FC 2, KICKERS 0
The schedule says the United Soccer League playoffs don’t really begin until the third week of October. Carl Haworth begs to differ. The Ottawa Fury FC captain feels his team’s playoffs began Wednesday night at TD Place against the Richmond Kickers.
And Haworth got his club off to a great start in the ‘unofficial’ postseason, scoring in the 8th minute on a free kick to propel the Fury to a key 2-0 win before a crowd of 3,535.
The victory was the Fury’s first in three games, though they have now won four of their last five on the home pitch and the win propelled them all the way from ninth in the Eastern Conference standings into a solid seventh with positions fourth through ninth now separated by just six points.
The Fury get a chance to move higher in the standings with a Saturday matinee against Indy 11, who won Wednesday in Toronto and lead the Fury by just a single point as Ottawa heads into its final 10 games of the regular season.
The Fury and Indy are evenly matched with 10 wins each.
Just as important to the Fury is they finish their last stretch of nine games with just three at TD Place. The Fury have not exactly played like road warriors this season, hence the importance of their remaining games on Bank Street
“I told the guys before the game that our playoffs start right now,” said Haworth, who bent one like Beckham and put it off Richmond keeper Trevor Spangenberg’s hands. “Every game is a must-win for us. We can’t afford to drop any points at this point in the season especially at home.
“It’s good to get the three points and move up the table. We’ve done well here (at TD Place). It’s become like our fortress.
“Our goal at the start of the season was always to host a playoff game. That goal has not changed. We have some good fixtures coming up. If we could sneak up into that fourth seed, that would be fantastic.”
The Fury FC must temper beating Richmond somewhat. The Indy 11 figure to be a much tougher test.
Richmond is not trending well with four consecutive losses coming into Ottawa, just one win in their last 10 and a dismal goaldifferential of minus-25.
Tony Taylor took a beautiful cross feed from Steevan Dos Santos and nailed it in the 84th minute to make it 2-0.
“It’s was a very, very important win,” said Fury head coach Nikola Popovic. “And against a team that is very deceiving.
“Yes (Richmond) is near the bottom of the table and we were able to control them, but every game is so important for us right now.
“We now have to move on to our next opponent in Indy and know that they are a very different team to play against. Every team in this league is difficult to play against.”