Impact 1, Railhawks 0

By: Franck | September 2nd, 2009

Yellow Cards to the left, yellow cards to the right! Oh, what an orgy of cards!

That’s what happens when the ref loses control of his match. As if Sunday’s match, involving the same two teams in the same stadium, wasn’t aggressive enough, the ref had to let the violence continue by A) not making all the calls and B) letting things degenerate as the game wore on. 9 yellows were given, two to Pizzolitto, who, by all accounts, should be suspended for another match (he’s already missing next Wednesday’s match against Vancouver) After several un-sportsmanlike tackles, a few elbows to the head, some shoving, Railhawks head coach Martin Rennie got tossed for kicking a water bottle at the 4th official.

The nice thing is, these two teams meet again on September 18 in Cary, and it’s entirely possible that these two teams might face each other in the playoffs. Now that would be sweet.

Leonardo Di Lorenzo scored a highlight reel goal in the 11th minute, taking a cross from Adam Braz which was poorly headed away by a Railhawks player and rifling it from inside the box into the top of the net, while keeper Eric Reed didn’t budge. That was the only marker of the match, as the Impact came away with a well-fought, if not particularily exceptional, victory. The Impact came out strong in the first fifteen, and then in the last minutes of the first half, but then sat on their heels in the second half, which was not aided by head coach Marc Dos Santos‘ decision to pull Rocco Placentino back a bit, then to sub out more offensive-minded Joey Gjertsen for Leighton O’Brien . The Impact didn’t give many offensive chances to Carolina, however, didn’t create many either.

I wish this team would try harder.