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Match Recap: Unionville Milliken SC 3 - 2 Vaughan Azzurri

By League1 Ontario staff, 06/04/17, 7:15PM EDT

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Vaughan's Cassandre Van Bakel (45', 47') struck for a brace on either side of the half-time break, but it wasn't enough to keep Unionville Milliken back as the home team rallied to get goals from Samantha Chang (53'), Natasha Klasios (78') and Isabelle Nashmi (84') and fashion an exciting second half comeback. 

"We had a bad five minutes close to the end of the first half and again at the start of the second half," said Unionville manager, Alex Morales. 

"I really thought the girls could have slumped, hunched their shoulders and felt sorry for themselves, but they didn't. As you saw, they just got back out there and got back to the game-plan, which changed a little bit, and just did what they had to do to get the win. It was great character."


Samantha Chang (Photo: Martin Bazyl)

With the win, Unionville went 5-0-0 and on 15 points they hold a commanding five point lead over Vaughan Azzurri at the top of the table. 

"We basically asked them to dig and win their individual battles," said Morales. 

"Vaughan is a very good side, very well organized, and a well-coached team. To break them down our girls had to have a little heart, and keep moving the ball - not hold the ball. The key was to raise the tempo in possession."

"Now I see what we have in this team," he added. "They have a lot of heart."

"I just want to single out my striker Natasha Klasios as well. She just refused to lose and the team fed off her. She was a beast, and it was great to see. We had a lot of beasts, but that was the number one beast. It was awesome to see." 

"The nucleus of this team is a '99 group and we are considered one of the young teams in this league. This type of game showed the character that they have. They will know now if we are down two goals that they can always come back, and to just keep plugging away. I think this is a seminal point in our season thus far, because Vaughan is a very very good team. I really respect them."


Natasha Klasios (Photo: Martin Bazyl)

The loss marked Vaughan's first, and assistant coach Jason Beckford said it had everything to do with missed chances and a lack of adaptation to the growing pressure from Unionville. 

"It always goes down to missed chances sometimes doesn't it," he said. "We should have been at least 4-0 up and we allowed them to get back in the game. We gave certain instructions at half-time and unfortunately some of those weren't executed. It's disappointing to lose any match but to lose in the way we did was very disappointing." 

"They tended to defend with quite a high line and that enabled us to try and break that line and get beyond them," he added. "I think we did that well and we scored at good times as well, just before and after half-time, which gave us a good foothold."

"Then we hit the bar a couple times and at 3-0 the game would have been over, it kills the opposition's spirit. Just defensively, we just didn't execute instructions and unfortunately that's what the game is about. If you don't execute, you pay the price and we did today." 

"We went to three at the back, but even at 2-1 they idea was just to have calm heads and I think mentally we broke down," he concluded. 

"We can talk about tactically and technically but I think it was mentally where we really broke. We couldn't cope with the pressure they were putting on us when we should have been able to. We had played quite well and had a good foothold in the game. We just didn't manage it properly."

Unionville Milliken SC will next play Sanjaxx Lions on Sunday June 11 at Monarch Park, Toronto.

Vaughan Azzurri will next play Woodbridge Strikers on Saturday June 10 at McNaughton Turf, Vaughan.