Well, it’s over! The 2006 soccer campaign came to a close on Sunday as the Stingers dropped their final game to the UQAM Citadins at Loyola field.
UQAM opened the scoring at the end of the first half, when the Citadin’s Florent Gout broke through the Stinger defence and sent the ball sailing over Stinger goalkeeper Daniel De Palma
The Stingers were making strides at the beginning of the second half, but all attempts were stopped with relative ease by UQAM goaltender Pascal Trudel. The Citadins continued to stack the board with goals in the second half, first in the 69th minute when Stinger’s keeper could not handle the seemingly harmless shot by UQAM’s midfielder, Hebert Nunes, as the ball sailed passed De Palma. Then in the 84th minute, William Baltimore, the Citadin’s forward, headed the ball directly past De Palma to widen the gap even further for the opposition.
Concordia scored their lone goal just one minute after the Baltimore goal as the Stingers’ striker, Alessandro Addesa was sent in on a breakaway and sent a blistering shot by the Citadin’s goalkeeper Trudel.
As the final whistle blew on the 2006 campaign, the players and coaches for Concordia could do nothing but hang their heads. Sunday’s loss was representative of the entire season as the Stingers failed to register one win throughout the entire 2006 period. When a team fails to register at least one victory throughout the season, chances are, some major changes need to be made in order to save the program. For a team that prides itself on greatness, the Stingers must look to the top to find a viable solution in order to produce a winning season for next year.
Alessandro Addesa, the three-year Stingers veteran believes starting training camp earlier in the season may help the team in the long run.
“My personal feeling is that we should start training camp in the summer, possibly in July. We’re sure to have success if we start early,” he said.
That may be one thing that the Stingers could do to improve their style of play, but many other factors need to be addressed, such as the Stingers’ communication, which was non-existent throughout the year, their lackluster performance, their inability to defend the ball in their own zone which resulted in numerous goals that should have been cleared away, their failure in the midfield in order to create plays, their collapse in the oppositions zone, which resulted in many missed scoring opportunities and finally, their inability to put some points on the board.
“Our soccer prowess was not up-to-par with the rest of the league,” said coach Vladimir Pavlicik, “We have to respect our opponents, as well as congratulate them.”
Best of luck to the 2007 men’s soccer team and hopefully next year’s season will make the 2006 campaign a distant memory!
