Joga Bonito 2010 YMCA Indoor Soccer Champs!

Chicago & Evanston. Monday April 26, 2010

The Soccer Times

Hello soccer fans!

Amazing soccer weekend, wasnt it? I promise that today is all about the YMCA indoor soccer league! No news from other leagues. Although, did you see Manchester United vs Totteham final minutes? Sorry. Couldnt hold it in!

Anyways, I gave you an update about the quarter finals before. The only one missing was the one between Chupacabras vs YMCA. Now, this YMCA team looked promising with a couple of very good players but it looks like they lacked the leadership that will keep them organized. They didnt even show up for the quarter finals! Chupacabras won by forfeit because YMCA didnt have enough players. Chupacabras moves on to meet Willard Warriors in the semi final. It was an entertaining game but I must say that the Warriors dominated the game. Second place in regular season standings Willard Warriors defeats Chupacabras 3-0!

Semi Final Review: Joga Bonito vs Fish Keg United
So the first semi final was Joga Bonito vs Fish Keg United. The score during the regular season was 7-1 in Joga Bonito's favor but there is always a big difference about a regular season game and a playoff game even if it is with the same teams. We knew this was not going to be that easy for JB. Goalie Mauricio, Pablo and Ernesto were a little late to the game. Anthony was sick and Antonio was injured. Coach Carlos had to call help from the Joga Bonito reserve team and they sent non other than Alicinha to step in for a few minutes! She did a great job! Captain Carlos had to goalkeep for a few minutes too until Mauricio arrived.

Joga Bonito started the game well with their signature passing. However, it was taking JB some time to find the net. Finally 10 minutes before the end of the first half, Rolando intercepted a bad pass from FKU, dribbled around a defender and scored! JB wins 1-0. Two minutes later, Ernesto scores for JB in a beautiful play involving Ernesto intercepting a ball giving it to Pablo who gave it to Rolando who gave it back to Ernesto. It was a nice goal! JB wins 2-0. Just 3 minutes before half time, Keith recovers a ball from the opponent, gives it to Ernesto who gives a one touch pass to Carlos. The Captain takes a hard shot that the goalie saves but cannot control and fortunately Ernesto is close enough to complete the finish! Half time score: JB 3 vs FKU 0.

The second half was very rough with no goals for most of it. Almost 6 minutes before the end of the game, Mauricio throws the ball to Rolando who is in the center of the court. Rolando sees he has a lot of pressure from the opponent and gives a one touch pass back to Keith to relief that pressure. Keith sees Captain Carlos on the left wing unmarked and gives him a beautiful pass. Carlos controls the ball and sees Rolando running on the other side calling him. Captain Carlos rolls a nice horizontal through pass to Rolando who finishes in an amazing one time shot! JB 4 vs FKU 0! Finally, almost 30 seconds before the end of the game, the ball is bouncing all over the place in JB's PK area and it accidentally touches Shand's hand. The ref calls a PK! That's a harsh call in my opinion! Shand never intended to touch the ball with the hand, the ball just bounced on her had. She had her arm down all the time! Anyway, Fish Keg's goalie takes the PK and succeeds. Final score: JB 4 vs Fish Keg 1! Wow! What a semi final!

2010 Indoor Soccer YMCA FINAL GAME: Joga Bonito vs Willard Warriors Review
In the first few minuted, WW showed that they were not going to be dominated by JB. WW had a couple of chances showing that they are just as good. However, Captain Carlos shocked them in 4th minuted when he took a shot from the left side that finished in the net and scored the first goal of the game. JB wins 1-0. Apparently, WW were not expecting that and were a little discouraged because 2 minutes later, Rolando takes another shot and scores! JB wins 2-0. After these quick goals, everyone thought that this was going to be a piece of cake for JB. Wrong! One minuted after JB's second goal, WW takes a shot which Mauricio saves, but then the WW striker takes the rebound which hits Mauricio in the mouth!

Goalkeeper Mau is down and is asking for medical attention, but the ref does not stop the game! Everyone can hear Captain Carlos yelling at the ref that the goalie is down, but the ref ignores him and continues the game. It was very quick and another WW striker takes the shot while Mau is down and scores! I think this was a harsh call by the ref! Anyway, the score is now 2-1 in JB's favor. But that is not the bad news, the bad news is that Mauricio is out holding his lip and saying that his braces got inside his lip! Mauricio could not goalkeep anymore! You can see how Coach Carlos was not expecting that at all! The medical staff had to take Mau off the stadium and to the hospital! Fortunately, Mau is better now, but sadly he could not finish the game.

Captain Carlos has no other options but to suit up and put his gloves on. You can see he doesnt like that at all but he is willing to sacrifice for his team. The game becomes intense with this 2-1 score for the next several minutes. Fortunately, 12 minutes before the end of the the first half, second goalie Carlos saves an easy shot and then throws the ball to Rolando who receives in the midfield. Rolando tries to elude an opponent and barely gives a nice pass to Keith who returns the ball to Rolando in a nice triangular one touch pass. Then, Rolando gives back the ball to Keith in another triangular one touch pass and Keith slides sending the ball to Ernesto who scores! In my opinion this was one of the most beautiful goals of the tournament! Very nice passing! First half is over and the score is 3-1 in favor of Joga Bonito.

The second half was a different story where JB had to defend like crazy! Willard Warriors were determined to tie the game. Five minutes into the second half, WW is able to get the ball in the area and in a moment of confusion scored their second goal! The score is now 3-2 and the game turns intense again! About ten minutes before the end of the game, Ernesto finds the net again and put JB at 4-2! Five minutes before the end, WW takes a shot low and right which Captain Carlos dives and saves! JB thought that WW would give up in the last couple of minutes, but they didnt. One minute and a half before the end, WW's striker hustles and is able to sneak in the ball pass Keith and Carlos! The score is now 4-3 with 1 minute left!. JB is desperately trying to defend and kill time. They are able to run down the clock and win the final 4-3!!! Wow! INTENSE FINAL! Congrats to JB!

We caught up with Captain Carlos and Coach Carlos (who by the way there are rumors that they are the same person!), "This is the happiest day of my career! I am very proud of all my players! They gave an outstanding performance! This trophy belongs to them!"

Captain Carlos was nearly in tears when US international super star Keith gave him a gift from the entire team: an ADIDAS AdiPure black and white ball signed by the entire crew plus the stats of the tournament!

From all our huge staff in The Soccer Times, we want to deeply congratulate Joga Bonito for an amazing tournament and FINAL. We cannot wait to see them next season 2011!!!

JB Top Scorers

Rolando 21 (Regular) + 7 (Playoffs) = 28
Ernesto 9 (Regular) + 5 (Playoffs) = 14
Tony 6 (Reg) + 3 (Playoffs) = 9
Antonio 8 (Reg)
Carlos 5 (Reg) + 3 (Playoffs) = 8
Keith 4
Pablo 4
Lovejoy 3
Alex 2
Shand 1
Byron 1
Own 1
Total 62 (Regular) + 21 (Plyaoffs) = 83!!!

2010 Award Ceremony
Friday April 30 at 8pm
Lou Malanati's
6649 North Lincoln Avenue
Lincolnwood, IL‎ - (847) 673-0800‎
Pizza and drinks sponsored by The Soccer Times!

Come and join us to celebrate with Joga Bonito!

Interesting Statistics
- Let's start with the only bad news, JB allowed more goals than last season. In 2009, they allowed 6 goals. In 2010, they allowed 16.

- Now, lets' move to the good and amazing news, I am excited to announce that Joga Bonito has won 22 YMCA indoor soccer official games in a row! JB is unstoppable!.

- JB has broken their own record for most goals scored in the YMCA tournament. In 2009, they scored 77 goals. In 2010, they scored 83! The second team in the league that scored most goals was YMCA and they scored only 34 goals! Can you believe it?

- International Honduran super star Roland Paz has broken his own record for scoring the most goals! In 2009, he scored 25 goals. In 2010, he scored 28 goals and he did it with his injured knee!!! This guy is a monster! He scored about 34% of Joga Bonito's goals.

- Finally, it is interesting to point out that this was the first YMCA tournament where the referee decided to use the official FUTSAL ball. Joga Bonito was loving it! They are forever grateful to the YMCA and the referee from bringing the balls from Brazil!


Conclusion
Thanks for reading! Send me your comments or I will think you just delete all my articles! Dont forget to check my blog and my facebook page!

http://carlosjquintero.blogspot.com/


Carlos Quintero
Joga Bonito Owner
El Presidente
Manager
Captain
Second Goalkeeper
Chauffer
Soccer Times Reporter
Water Boy

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!