Mental mistakes cost Stingers

The Concordia Stingers men’s soccer team lost both games of their season opening weekend, falling 1-0 to the UQAM Citadins on Friday and 2-1 to the Sherbrooke Vert et Or on Sunday.
In Sunday’s game, the Stingers took a 1-0 lead into halftime after midfielder Aref Amiri knocked home a rebound following forward Fernando Daluiso’s penalty kick in the 19th minute.
However, it was during an eight minute span at the beginning of the second half where the game got away from the Stingers. In the opening minute of the second half, a poor clearance by the Stingers’ backend allowed Sherbrooke striker Yannick Gosselin to put his first of two goals behind Concordia goalkeeper Kyle Prillo-Guaiani. Minutes later, Gosselin was stopped by Prillo-Guaiani on a penalty kick. He scored the game winning goal in the 54th minute.
“The reason why teams score goals at the beginning or end of the half are because the players focus is not where it should be, or where the coach wants it to be,” said Stingers head coach Lloyd Barker.
“It’s immensely frustrating,” Barker said. “It’s not anything they are doing, it’s self inflicted. In the first game [Friday against UQAM] it was a breakaway and [on Sunday] a missed clearance. Those are gifts to the other team.”
Barker’s view of the game was echoed by his squad.
“It was a mental breakdown in the box,” said Stingers captain and defender Brian Bourbonnais. “We had the lead and needed to come out in the second half strong and didn’t,” he said.
Perhaps another issue of concern for the Stingers is the lack of offensive pressure through the first two games. They had trouble generating scoring chances in those two matches and produced just one goal.
“We need to generate some offence and have more fluidity on the attack, but even so, if we make no mistakes in our end, the worst case is a 0-0 score,” Barker said.
“We need to have more creativity up front,” Barker said.
“We need better play from our midfield to help out our forwards because good scoring chances come from the middle of the field,” he said.
Concordia will look to improve its scoring touch this week when they go to McGill on Thursday and are home to UQTR on Sunday.
“We just have to keep working,” Bourbonnais said. “We need to stick to the game plan and see what comes from that,” he said.