Pereira puts finishing touch on friendly
Blast fans got a sneak peek of their three-time defending Major Arena Soccer League champions Saturday night when they hosted the Canadian national indoor soccer team for an international exhibition.
In the first-of-its-kind friendly, the priorities for the home team were simple: compete hard, put on a good show and come out healthy.
All those things were accomplished and a bonus came with a dose of late-game heroics from Juan Pereira.
A little more than a minute after Vini Dantas tied the game, Pereira scored the game-winning goal with 1:25 left as the Blast rallied for an 8-7 win before an announced crowd of 1,727 at Towson University’s SECU Arena.
It turned out to be much of the same for the Blast from last year. They went a perfect 13-0 in their inaugural season at SECU Arena and played in 16 one-goal games overall.
After relinquishing a four-goal first-half lead and trailing by a goal with less than five minutes to play, the Blast once again found resolve despite only getting in one brief training session, on Friday.
“We always want to play hard, it doesn’t matter if it’s just an exhibition. The fans came out to support us and we played for them,” said Pereira, who finished with two goals.
Before player introductions, a big applause came when the big screen showed highlights of the Blast’s clinching championship game win over Monterrey last season.
Daniel Peruzzi provided the early offensive spark with a goal and an assist in a first quarter when goalie Joey Kapinos made consecutive sparkling saves midway through and veteran defender Adriano Dos Santos sprawled in front of the net in the closing seconds to block a shot to keep the Blast ahead 2-0.
Andrew Hoxie and Pereira scored early in the second quarter for a 4-0 advantage, but the Blast were unable to stay in front of Canada, which is preparing for the World Minifootball Federation Arena Soccer World Cup in October.
With the Blast leading 6-4 going into the fourth quarter, the visitors took over the game behind midfielder Luis Rocha. He scored twice — his second goal tying the game at 6 with 7:27 to play — and then made a precise doorstep pass to Freddy Moojen to put away a man-advantage goal to make it 7-6 with 4:59 to play. The Blast took over from there. The Blast will begin their quest to defend their title starting at the end of October with open tryouts, followed by training camp in November and the regular-season opener the first week in December. The 2018-19 MASL schedule is expected to be released next month.