Second Place?
After our Champions League disappointment, we started the season ready to dominate.
We beat Royal Puma by a comfortable 6-2 margin.
And that’s when things went bad.
We took on Ilaoa and To’omata in front of a home crowd of 524 (don’t laugh — that’s big for American Samoa). And, well, we lost.
What Happened?
You know, I’m actually not quite sure what happened.
It’s not like we started a bunch of bad players. We went with Mark Taga’i and Petu Pouli up front, two new signings. Petu Pouli finished second to Toa Maile in the race for top scorer in the league last year. I thought he’d be good, but he wound up looking really poor.
Our new goalkeeper, Hengihengi Ikuvalu, simply had an awful match. In fact, the entire defense looked poor. Even star centerback Ioane Palepua couldn’t save things when he came on.
We went down 1-0 in the 34th minute, and then gave up a second goal in the 91st minute. Our only hint at a comeback was a single goal scored by King Moe (another new signing) in the 94th minute, giving us a somewhat reasonable final score of 2-1.
Looking Forward
So what happens now?
Well, we hope that Ilaoa and To’omata lose. We’re in second place at the moment, and we really need them to give up ground to give us a realistic shot.
One of the problems with playing in this league is that there are only 11 teams. That means a season of only 20 games, which means that a single loss can really sting. It’s not unreasonable to expect Ilaoa and To’omata to go undefeated the rest of the way.
We might be able to beat them when we face them again, though. That’s really our one hope.