Gauss bags a brace to help West Mifflin beat talkative bunch

FTM United 1-2 West Mifflin FC


Vargo; Kutscher, Kufen, Nickel, Gasparovic; Baguet, Gauss, Pcholinski, Lacock; Stinner, Degerolamo


Substitutions: Daveon, Isadore

1-0 Gauss (13)
1-1 Some Turd (56)
Daveon-Yellow Card  (65)
Some Turd-Yellow Card (73)
2-1 Gauss (pen) (73)
Some Other Turd-Yellow Card (88)


The Blues traveled into Pennsylvania back country for a game with third place FTM United on Sunday, and were greeted with shitty refereeing and even worse whining and bitching. From the jump there was wailing and gnashing of teeth of biblical proportions from the gentleladies in red. As has become the norm, West Mifflin went into this game with 13 of their possible 19 squad members. Yes, while some spent the day gallivanting about town, leaving their teammates to unnecessarily suffer exhaustion and heatstroke, others fought the laboriously high grass and equally tall tackles of the Ladies in Red. Despite the ridiculous shortage of man-power, the Blues found a way to grab all three points.

West Mifflin went into this game knowing little about their opponent. The Reds had beaten some top teams, lost and drawn with some lower-table teams, and tied teams that have scored a lot of goals 1-1. Although they didn't receive any intuition as to style of play or overall skill, the Blues got a really good idea as to what FTM United were about when they got to the field and noticed several opposition players prancing about with no shirts on. Ignorance is strength though and West Mifflin dominated the early goings on. West Mifflin started the game in a shuffled 4-4-2. With Kutscher returning to sweeper, Pcholinski was able to move back into the center of the park to partner with Gauss. Gasparovic moved to stopper and Nickel got a start out on the left side of defense. West Mifflin's midfield were strong from the start. The triumvirate of Gauss, Baguet and Pcholinski and their ability to win balls and find an open man is impeccable. On several occasions, both Stinner and Degerolamo were released on a nicely guided through ball to the corners. It didn't take long for Stinner to realize something: the right back had absolutely no idea what he was doing. It made sense, for he was one of the shirtless wonders. Whenever the ball was in the Reds attacking zone, he would push way too far up the field and leave acres of space down the right side. Stinner and Degerolamo exploited the space repeatedly but couldn't find a way to put the ball into the net. Probably because Stinner looks and feels like this.

Stinner's best chance came halfway through the first half when Pcholinski sent in a perfect cross. Stinner lunged for it and slid on his six year old studs and yanked his hamstring. Not too big a deal other than the sheer ridiculousness of the miss, as moments later, Gauss scored an absolute peach. I don't remember if it was from open play or a corner [Edit: it was a free kick], or even who sent it in (I think Lacock) [Edit: it was a midget-man with an over-compensating temper, below-average Rock-Paper-Scissor skills and the weakest calf muscles in the world who sent in a really poor cross], but Gauss flew across the box and leaped into the air. The cross was so unbelievably bad, Gauss was fortunate he had the awareness to get his hair-wax based, mohawk-styled head to the ball. He was able and he glanced it up and over the outstretched keeper and into the back corner...

The crowd was silenced by the goal which is strange because they bitched in equal magnitude to the players they came to support. Which was also strange because what happened next was a clear indication of the character of these turds. On a corner kick some jerk tried to punch the ball into the net. The center ref, who very well could have been refereeing the first game of his life, didn't blow his whistle. The assistant referee, upon being asked by Matthew Alan point blank if he saw the hand ball, said he did in fact see it...but didn't raise the flag. Yikes.

The second half started almost identically to the first with West Mifflin dominating possession and squandering several chances. Of course, I can't recall any of them outside of Stinner going up for a header...and not heading it. I think it was around this time that Daveon got a yellow card. I also can't remember if this happened in the first or second half, but he got one and I'm sure it was probably a bad call. Yada, yada, yada, FTM equalized on yet another rinky dinker. It may have been a corner and it may not have been, but the ball bounced around the area for what seemed like ages until a red-clad plonker plooped it in to make it 1-1. It was a shitty goal to concede and it was made worse by the jubilant reaction of the home crowd. Rubbing salt into the wound, Dan-The-Man Isadore, added to the squad mid-season to add depth to the threadbare WMFC roster at the behest of Head Scout Chris Nickel and Scouting Director Tyler Lacock, left with an undisclosed foot injury and was unable to return - leaving WMFC with only 12 fit players to see out the remaining 20-odd minutes.

It didn't look good for West Mifflin but it's times like these that the leaders step up, grab the team by the short hairs and lead them to victory. So, who stepped up and lead the team on? Degerolamo. And what did he do to stand out as a hard-nosed, "let's get down to business", even-though-I-never-come-to-practice-I-still-think-I-should-start-and-play-the-whole-game GAAARRRBAAAAAAGGGGEEEEE Man of a leader? He took a dive. Or so, that's what the entirety of FTM's 11 thought. Yes, those mighty bastions of truth that only 40 minutes earlier tried to score on a corner by flailing a hand at a cross were accusing Degerolamo of diving when he was clearly bulled over by the defender. There was no hesitation from the assistant ref and the flag was raised immediately. In the kerfuffle that ensued, a stumpy, dwarfish man had the nerve to say something to Gauss, whose faux-hawk was now lined up over the penalty spot. It was a silly comment to make and he was shown yellow. Gauss lined up and shot it to the keeper's left. The keeper chose the correct side but couldn't get to it. Gauss had his double and West Mifflin regained the lead for good. After that the Blues went into Bolton-mode and barricaded the 15 yards outside the penalty area with 10 defenders for the remainder of the game.

One final note: Kufen raced down a stray ball that was headed for the touchline. He beat the ball there and was able to boot it out for a throw. Once the call was made, a Justin Timberlake wannabe, Justin Timberfake (cheers to my RMU roommates) if you will, turned and once again mouthed off to the ref. He was also shown yellow and that was that. West Mifflin leapfrogged FTM United with the win and now sit third in the GPSL Championship table on 14 points. There is no game this weekend but the Blues will play back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday next weekend. Hopefully, the Blues will have more than 12 for those two big games. See you then!