Joga Bonito!

Chicago & Evanston IL USA
Monday April 19, 2010

The Soccer Times

Hello my fellow soccer fans!

Tons of soccer fun this weekend! Weather was beautiful outside. I played saturday outside and didnt want to stop playing!

Spanish La Liga is getting exciting again. Barcelona tied 0-0 away at neighbors Espaniol. Very rough game for Guardiola's boys. Madrid played a sloppy game at home against Valencia but they pulled the 2-0 win. So this 2 horse race is a 1 point difference now! What do you think? 5 games more to go. I dont know. Anything can happen! Is Higuain with 23 goals going to catch up to Messi 26 goals?

The premier league is on fire! Man United won the derby away to Man City 1-0. With a Scholes goal on the 92nd minute! Can you believe it? And Tottenham at home defeated the mighty Chelsea 2-0. Arsenal did a major "D'oh!" against Wigan. They were winning 2-0 and lost 3-2! Say what?! So it looks like this is a 2 horse race now with a 1 point difference too. Only 3 games to go! Do you think Drogba will catch up to Rooney as top scorer? Drogba has 25 and Rooney has 26!

Seria A is also coming to an intense finale! Inter defeated Juve 2-0 at home but Roma also won away 2-1 against Lazio! So Roma is back as leader but Inter is only 1 point behind. Milan lost away against Sampdoria in the last minute! So disappointing! Oh well, it looks like also a 2 horse race. Only 4 games to go!

Junior Tu Papa defeated Santa Fe at home 2-0! As of now they are in the plaoffs, they need to keep winning and remain in the top 4 to get in!

But who cares, right? Let's talk about the best league in the universe: the YMCA indoor soccer league!

JB vs People's Republic Game Review
We all were expecting a boring game between the best and the worst, right? Wrong! People's Republic showed that they cannot be underestimated! They showed that they have a heart to fight all the way! They gave JB some nice competition and this was a fun game to watch! I must say that their goalkeeper is probably one of the best in the tournament. This guy saved like 30 shots yesterday! And these were no easy shots! I mean, JB threw everything at this guy, and he was saving everything! Well, not everything.

JB started slow and they thought this was going to be an easy game. The score board was 0-0 for the first 15 mins. Finally, Pablo had a nice assist to Rolando which opened the score and gave JB a nice relief. Rolando scored once again before the first half and the score was 2-0 at half time. Coach Carlos asked everyone to calm down and encouraged everyone to remain patient and organized.

PR shocked everyone when they scored their first goal and put the board at 1-2. I think PR was even more surprised that JB. JB remained patient and kept most of the ball posession. Finally, Keith broke the silence with an amazing third goal for JB! The score was 3-1 now. Later on, Captain Carlos snuck the fourth and gave an extra relief to the team: 4-1. Yet, PR will not give up! Their attack was underestimated by JB and the squeezed their second goal: 2-4! Captain Carlos asked everyone to remain calm. It is amazing how JB never panic. They always recover most of the ball posession and keep trying to score more. Carlos, Rolando, Antonio, Pablo and Ernesto had some amazing shots that their goalie stopped. Finally, one of Pablo's amazing shots ended in the net giving JB the 5-2. Perhaps the most amazing goal was the next one where I think every single player in JB touched the ball. It was a combination of short triangular passes and Captain Carlos just pushed it in giving JB the 6-2. Lastly, Rolando scored a couple of more that gave JB the final 8-2! Congrats!

We were able to catch up with Coach Carlos for comment: "I am very proud of my players. They remained calm and kep playing their game. They knew that the goals would come eventually. We had most of the posession. We made a couple of mistakes in the back. We need to tighten the mark when we are on defense for the playoffs. Overall, I thought we did outstanding!"

Man of the Match: Keith Veneziano!
Keith always shows up when the team needs him the most. And his goal yesterday gave JB such a relief because JB was only winning by 2-1 when Keith scored the third one. He is always giving his best in the back defending but once in a while you will hear him yell: YES! YES! YES! And that means that he is ready for his teammates to give him THE pass to kill. Congrats to Keith for an amazing game!

We are excited to announce that JB has completed an 8 game winning streak against every single team in the YMCA! If you add the 11 games that they won last season this means that JB has a total of 19 games undefeated!!! That is very impressive! However, JB should not relax because the YMCA playoffs are this coming weekend. JB will play against the winner between the 8th and 9th place on saturday April 24 at 6pm. If they win, then they will play Sunday the semi final at 5pm. If they win, then the final will be at 7pm. We wish JB all the best!

Standings:
Po Team Played Won Draw Loss GF GA GD Pts
1 Joga Bonito 8 8 0 0 62 12 50 24
2 Warriors 8 5 2 1 21 11 10 17
3 Buckeyballs 8 4 2 2 20 13 7 14
4 YMCA 8 4 1 3 34 23 11 13
5 Chupacabra 8 3 3 2 25 22 3 12
6 Fish Keg 8 3 2 3 21 25 -4 11
7 Rotary United 8 2 1 5 24 46 -22 7
8 Team Lee 8 1 1 6 19 43 -24 4
9 Peoples Rep 8 0 0 8 7 39 -32 0

Last Results:
Ninth week - April 18
Time Team 1 Score Team 2 Score
4pm Team Lee 0 Buckeyballs 1 Lee forfeits
5pm YMCA 0 Willard Warriors 1 YMCA forfeits
6pm Rotary United 6 Fish Keg United 6
7pm Joga Bonito 8 People's Republic 2
Bye - Chupacabra

Next Fixtures
Playoffs - Saturday April 24

Time Team 1 Score Team 2 Score Match

1 3pm Team Lee (8) People's Republic (9) Pre

2 4pm Buckyballs (3) Fish Keg United (6) Quarter
3 5pm Warriors (2) Rotary United (7) Quarter
4 6pm Joga Bonito (1) Winner 1 Quarter

Playoffs - Sunday April 25

5 4pm YMCA (4) Chupacabra (5) Quarter

6 5pm Winner 2 Winner 4 Semi
7 6pm Winner 3 Winner 5 Semi

8 7pm Winner 6 Winner 7 Final


JB Top Scorers:
Scorers Regular
Rolando 21
Ernesto 9
Antonio 8
Tony 6
Carlos 5
Keith 4
Pablo 4
Lovejoy 3
Shand 1
Byron 1
Total 62


Next game for JB: Quarter Final Saturday April 24 at 6pm
Joga Bonito will have to play the quarter final against the winner between the 8th place which is Team Lee and the 9th place which is People's Republic. On paper, this should be an easy game for JB. However, we know that some of the super stars like Pablo and Keith will not be there. Still, JB has enough talent to win this game and move on to the semi final on Sunday.

We wish Joga Bonito the best of the best!

Interesting Stats

- Rolando has already broken his own record of most goals for the regular season. Last 2009 season he scored 18 goals before the playoffs and 25 total for the tournament. This season 2010 he has scored 21 just before the playoffs! This guy is unstoppable! Do you think he will break his 25 goal record?

- Joga Bonito scored 61 goals before the playoffs last 2009 season and 77 total for the tournament. Rolando and Pablo scored 60% of those 77 goals last season. This 2010 season Joga Bonito has already broken their own record. They have scored 62 goals before the playoffs. However, Pablo has only scored 4 so far. Yet probably he has the most assists for Joga Bonito. This means that other players like Ernesto, Antonio, Tony, Keith, Lovejoy and Shand have stepped up to score goals to help Joga Bonito break the goals in favor record! Will they surpass their 77 record for the tournament?

- Unfortunately, Joga Bonito has not been very impressive defensively as last season. However, I dont think that JB's defense is weaker. I think that their opponents have improved. Last season 2009, Joga Bonito only allowed 4 goals in the regular season before the playoffs. This season 2010, they have already allowed 12 goals! We talked to Coach Carlos for comment: "Yes, it is true that we have been sloppy defensively at times. I think that the correct way to approach this problem is for every single player including the attackers to understand that when we dont have the ball we must recover it right away. Sometimes attackers think that they dont have to defend because it is not in their title. This is far from the truth! When we dont have the ball, it means that we are ALL in defensive mode!"

- Finally, as mentioned before, JB continues their winning streak with 19 undefeated games! Amazing!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! Please send me your comments or I might think you are just ignoring me! Check out the video and pics on my Facebook page and blog.

Also, you can catch the Joga Bonito vs Chupacabras 10 min video on YouTube. Just go to the YouTube website and type: joga bonito ymca. It should be the first one on the list.

You should also see some video footage of JB vs People's Republic on my FaceBook page!

Here is the YMCA link for schedule and standings:

http://www.mcgawymca.org/index.cfm?fa=prog.type&id=830

Follow my blog at:

http://carlosjquintero.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading!

Carlos Quintero
Joga Bonito Owner
El Presidente
Manager
Captain
Second Goalkeeper
Chauffer
Soccer Times Reporter
Water Boy
and even Camera Man!