It was a dry cloudy day as Wanderers faced LG Guardians for the 2nd time this season. After a heated first game, coach Farhang was insistant that his players keep their cool and focus on a top performance to bring home the 3 points.
The first half started with waves of attacks from Wanderers, which culminated in an early goal in the 9th minute. This was the 3rd game in a row where Wanderers managed to open the scoring in the first 10 minutes of the game, and this time it was Lucca Galvani who picked up his first goal of the season, after David Palffy played him through on goal inside the box.
The Wanderers' attacks continued, and eventually lead to a 2nd goal in the 31st minute. Sina Kimiaei played a gorgeous long ball which put Abid through on goal, so that he could slot the ball away in the near post.
Only minutes later, Amir Kashanipour's freekick hit the crossbar and Lucca managed to put away the rebound with an impressive volley to increase the Wanderers' lead to 3 goals.
Later on in the dying minutes of the first half, a cross by Amir Kashanipour found David Palffy in the box, where he managed to head in the 4th goal. The celebrations were cut short however, as the referee blew the whistle to indicate an offside decision against David. The playback footage showed clearly that David was indeed onside, but given the lack of any sideline referees, the Wanderers' goal was mistakenly chopped off by the ref.
The half time whistle was blown, and Wanderers finished the first half with a three goal lead. In the second half, Wanderers dropped the intensity of their game, which resulted in most of the posession to be with LG Guardians in the opening minutes of the half. This eventually lead to a goal for Guardians in the 57th minute, which gave them something to play for once again.
In the 65th minute, the Wanderers goalie, Danyal Yasini, received a yellow card for dissent, after his claims for an LG Guardians corner where the ball never entered the pitch fell on deaf ears.
The tension between the two teams also kept increasing as time went on. In fact in the 72nd minute, an LG Guardians defender received a yellow card for shoving David Palffy with both hands after the ball had gone out of play. This was far from the last notable clash of the game, but before all hell broke loose later on in the match, Danny Hanover managed to strike the ball against the bar and into the back of the net from a long range effort. This was also Danny's first goal of the season, and extended Wanderers' lead to 3 goals once again.
In the 81st Minute, the Wanderers goalie, Danyal made an incredible save to keep the score at 4-1. This occurred when an LG Guardians player went through on goal and fired away a shot on target inside the box. Danyal managed to claw the ball out from just under the bar with an impressive reaction save, and denied an almost certain goal for the Guardians.
As the game approached the closing minutes, it seemed as though this would go on to be a comfortable and uneventful win for Wanderers. The 88th minute however, was when things started to get out of hand. As Wanderers committed bodies forward on a counter attack, an LG Guardians Defender decided to disposess David Palffy by quite literally punching him in the face! David, who was in utter shock and disbelief, turned to the referee and was dumbfounded to see that he was waving off his claims of a foul. An altercation broke out between the assailant and David, which lead to more players to get involved in the brawl. While some tried to break up the fight, some rushed in support of their teammate and cussed at the other team's players.
With everything that went on, the one man who continuously and undisputably failed to protect the players and lead a peaceful game was the crooked referee. Not only did he fail to manage the game throughout by allowing cynical fouls to go unpunished, but he also failed to stop the game and produce a clear red card to the LG Guardians player who exhibited unsportsman behavior & engaged in violent conduct.
The severe lack of game management, as well as failure to respond to a violent action with the appropriate measures set out by the league's code of conduct, lead to a massive and unfortunate brawl in the closing minutes of the game.
Once again instead of attempting to find a solution, the referee decided to merely runaway from the problem by blowing the whistle early and declaring the game to be over. He allowed a clear and obvious violent conduct which put the safety of a Wanderers' player in danger to go completely unpunished, and then later justified his decision to the team's vice-captain by stating "... when two players clash, I have to either produce a red card for both parties, or for neither one..."
Regardless of the unfortunate altercation at the end of the match, Wanderer's did well to win a 3rd league match on the bounce, which brings their total points tally to 13 after 6 games.
Upwards & Onwards, Wanderers! And god bless every other referee in this league for at least doing the bare minimum and managing a peaceful game...
