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YCAC, April 29, 2009.
No I am not mistaken and that is not the wrong date. That was the date when Hibs got smashed by YCAC on their pitch last year, my only loss to them during my four years wearing the green uniform and perhaps the most painful one of all. Unfortunately, I do not have a time machine like my friend Marty McFly "In Back to The Future," to go back in time and bring us back last year's title. So Hibs had to first face their ghosts from the past, then rebuild a better team and hopefully after all that get another shot at the title.
However, I did not expect it to come so soon against YCAC again. Although the clash of the "Titans" has yet to come, destiny served us up a little preview with a cup semifinal between the two teams. Both were hoping to move into the finals, as well as win the mental battle so important for the upcoming league encounter.
With so much at stake, the game started a 100 miles an hour with YCAC and Hibs exchanging blows at each other. As the game went on, Hibs showed more passing skills and more options to find the net than YCAC, which seemed to be trying desperately to cross the ball into the box looking for somebody to put it in. That strategy might have worked against other teams but it takes more than that to break through the solid defense of the Hibs. While YCAC opted to put in crosses, Hibs kept using their fast and dangerous counter-attacks - Hibs seemed more dangerous but YCAC seemed more calm on the ball. In one of the last plays for the first half, Josh tried a long pass to Andre which was intercepted by YCAC's quick defender, however he did not expect the pressure fom Andre, who stole the ball on the left side, passed to Yohei on the edge of the box, who passed to Tomo in the center, who passed to Dan coming in free from the right side, who placed it in perfectly in the top left corner, a beautiful goal from a beautiful play, giving Hibs the lead for the first half, 1-0.
For the second half, Hibs knew that YCAC would come at them with full power and nothing to lose, so we opted to wait and counter attack. However, it was a dangerous thing to do, specially when playing the defending champions at their ground. Needless to say, YCAC did what was expected and seemed closer to scoring at times. Their most dangerous play was when their forward got through on goal and managed a hard strike. Hitoshi made an impossible save sending it to the center of the box to another striker who kicked it at an open goal, but while everybody was expecting it to go in, Jay flew in out of nowhere with his US size 50 feet to deny a goal that could have changed the game. Hibs then realized that they needed to push forward in order to keep their rivals from scoring. After many dangerous plays from both sides and about 25 minutes into the second half, Hibs finally found their way in, off of a throw-in by Josh to Sam, who turned on his defender and passed to our green version of Nakamura, Tomo who only had to placed it into an open goal. The goal was like a cold shower to a fired up YCAC team, making it easier for the third to come almost the same way, except this time was Dan who placed it in giving final numbers to the game and sending YCAC
away from the cup for the second year in a row.
It was a great game between two of the best teams this year. YCAC is a solid and skillful team and I am sure it will be a totally different story next time Hibs face them in the league..
By Andre Pinto
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