TWO PENALTIES SINK UNITED
24 / 07 / 2016
FC Caramba Riga 
Two second half penalties was enough to see FC Caramba beat the Black Cats.
Date published: 24/07/2016 - 18:00
FC Caramba 2-0 Riga United FC
Riga United lost 2-0 on Friday night away to FC Caramba. This was a game highlighted by constant frustration in play in the final third of the field and penalties given away. Two penalties in five minutes was enough for Caramba to win but United will be left disappointed by their finishing and rightly feel aggrieved by one of the penalties.
With a reshuffled team, due to a few players missing, United
looked promising and competitive against a Caramba side, who have
only lost once this season. Riga Untied, the few chances they had
going forward, looked dangerous and the defence looked solid.
Caramba had the battle of the midfield though and United were
overrun in that department too often. In the opening exchanges,
United missed a very good one-on-one chance and Caramba struck the
post.
As the half went one, Riga United started to find their off-ball
discipline and made it very difficult for Caramba. They started to
pressure the players well and track players down effectively. The
team was looking the stronger of the two sides; the possession of
the ball though was not well kept and going forward they didn’t
retain the ball well enough for them to mount any serious attack.
The longer the game wore on, the better Caramba were going to feel
about getting a win. The Black Cats though, would have been the
happier team going into half time.
Of the first half, Mo Awada was relatively happy: “On the whole, I
was pleased with the performance. The lads worked hard
especially in the 1st half, we created some good openings but the
final pass or finish let us down.”
“My only concern would be, we gave the ball away too cheaply and
needed to relax a little more. We didn’t look for the simple pass
but we attempted too many difficult passes and lost the
ball.”
The second half started much the same with both sides looking very
equal - stronger in some places and weaker in others. United
looked like the team to open the scoring though. As they pressed
and harassed Caramba, they won an indirect free kick in the penalty
area after a pass-back to the goalie and a dangerous looking
corner. It was Caramba who struck to be the ones to open the
scoring. In the 59th minute of the game, Caramba were awarded
the first of two penalties after the attacker was brought down in
the area. The striker coolly slotted it in to make it 1-0. The
second penalty however, United will probably feel annoyed about for
sometime. Five minutes after the first goal, Caramba had a corner
and after a struggle in the penalty area, in which United’s
goalkeeper Graham Williams was being held back, the referee accused
him of being the guilty party and holding the arm of another
player. Second penalty, second goal.
For the rest of the half, the story for Riga was very much the
same: United would fight very hard for the ball but when it came to
attacking, the play broke down too easily in the final third of the
pitch. Shots were either shot high over the bar or harmlessly into
the arms of the Caramba goalkeeper.
United ran out of time and luck as the final whistle blew.
They tried hard enough and there's no question they put a lot
of effort into that game; that said, they just wasted possession
too easily and were just not clinical enough in front of
goal.
Reflecting on the second half, Mo Awada acknowledged the effort but
was left frustrated: “We had a sloppy 15 minutes, in the wind,
which cost us the game. The first penalty, I’ll admit was a
stonewall one; however, the second penalty four minutes later was
not and that killed the game. The referee made a huge mistake
in giving it and that really turned the game.”
“At 2-0 they controlled the game. We gave it our best shot
but didn't quite have enough to hurt them. All in all though,
it has been a huge improvement from last season, especially if you
saw the players we had missing. The lads gave everything.“