Playoff drive seems stalled for Fury
Ottawa tied with North Carolina in ninth place with nine games left to play
Ottawa Fury FC heads coach Nikola Popovic has long maintained the final four playoff positions in the USL’s Eastern Conference won’t be determined until the last four or five games of the regular season.
Well, if his Fury FC doesn’t start putting a string of wins together in short order, those last four or five games might just be meaningless.
The Fury playoff drive appears stalled after Santi Moar scored twice in the first 33 minutes to carry the Bethlehem Steel to an relatively easy-looking 2-0 win Wednesday night at Goodman Stadium in Bethlehem, Pa.
The loss marked the opening of the final 10-game stretch for the Fury and cost it heavily in the conference table. A win would have vaulted the Fury past both Bethlehem and idle Nashville and left them no worse than a tie for seventh place.
Instead, the loss pushed Bethlehem five points ahead of the Fury and in terms of the playoff picture left the Ottawa club on the outside looking in, tied for ninth with North Carolina with nine games to play.
The shutout also extended the Fury’s run without a goal to 186 minutes, going back to the 84th minute of a 2-0 win over lowly Richmond Aug. 15. The Fury return to TD Place for a Saturday night match with Penn FC.
“I think when you behave like this, when your attitude is to the final whistle like we were today, then I think we have to have hope that we can achieve the playoffs,” Popovic said.
“We knew since the beginning of the season that it was going to be very, very tight. There are six, seven and, if you push tight, even eight teams that are looking for four places, so it’s going to be a tough run until the last week.
“I think it was a very even match; two small details dictated the first half, two small details that Bethlehem was able to do well and score two goals. After that, it was a very even game with chances on both sides.
“I think if it was possible to score a goal, I think we would have been able to come back. (It) wasn’t possible; however, I’m proud of my players because they fought until the end.”
Coming into the contest, Fury captain Carl Haworth said the playoff season had unofficially started for his club and every game was a must-win.
Almost 1,200 kilometres away from home, the Fury didn’t show any of that urgency, particularly in the opening 45 minutes as Bethlehem put the game away, then coasted on a rain-drenched pitch in the second half.
Moar put Bethlehem on the board in the 16th minute by streaking into open space and then chipping a pass over Fury keeper Max Crepeau.
Just 16 minutes later, it was Moar again after a handball call against a Fury defender, and the contest was over.
Ottawa had absolutely no pressure on the Bethlehem side through 45 minutes and Popovic opted to clean the bench at halftime by inserting Tony Taylor and Eddie Edward, then Adonijah Reid in the 61st minute.
It was all to no avail and nothing was going to go right for the Fury against the Steel, which came into the game tied with Ottawa with nine wins. The Fury’s first legitimate scoring chance did not come until the 68th minute, with David Edgar jumping up into the play for a header off a free kick by Cristian Portilla.
With the outcome no longer in doubt, Ottawa’s Thomas Meilleur-Giguere got his foot on a loose ball in front of the Bethlehem goal and replays appeared to show at least part of the ball cross the goal-line, though the side official ruled the ball did not completely cross the plane.
Ottawa had just two shots on target over 90 minutes.
“The statistics only follow what goes inside the target, but I think what is important is to shoot at the goal,” Popovic said. “We shot 11 times and to only have two chances to score, we wanted to have the ball, but it wasn’t possible in the first half.”