Chattanooga FC: You fellas played with heart and and a never-say-die attitude, but it just wasn’t enough last night. While you are no doubt very disappointed with the result (and we’re sad too), we want you to know that we are so very proud of you. Your determination, hard work and overall teamwork was a sheer pleasure to watch. You all have pulled our community together in a truly unique way, and we are so grateful for it. And in our minds, just having a Chattanooga team make it to a National Championship is a dream come true.

Sacramento was very good. And fast. It looks like our thought in an earlier post about their semifinal game was right: they did seem to be suffering from travel legs in that game, and had gotten back to full strength by our game. Though we have to admit, we did have our chances: what if one or two of those very early goals (before Fynn’s) had gone in? Or what if we made the PK? Ah, but this is the stuff that football legend is made of “what ifs” and “if onlys”…

It quite honestly is probably very good for us not to have won. We have had so much success as a team, in attendance, in connections to professional clubs and so on. Having a championship already might feel like we had reached our peak only in season two. Where would we have to go from there?

Well enough thoughtful introspection. In spite of his season high “goals allowed” (3), we still believe that Richard Masters was Man of the Match. He easily saved 4 or even 5 other possible goals. His humble attitude and workmanlike approach to goalkeeping has been a sheer pleasure to watch. So we salute you and join the chant “Ri-chard Mas-ters!”

In closing this entry, we think it does have to be noted (pay attention NPSL leadership): EASILY 80% of your 1000+ attendance last night were Chattanooga FC fans. Think if you had held the championship in Chattanooga! That would’ve been close to 10,000. We’re not exaggerating. Think about what sort of funds that would generate for the league! And we would’ve had beer and quality food vendors… Something to think about for future championship venues. Oh, and while our turf field has its definite downsides, it is still better and bigger than that field we played on last night.

Oh, and you’re welcome.

Chattanooga FC players, coaches and organization: THANK YOU. You are awesome. What a great way to spend our summer!

Who’s going to join the Fan Caravan down to Madison AL for the championship? We had about 100 supporters turn out for the semifinal. And that’s for 4 hours of driving (2 hrs each way) on a weeknight — these fans had to work the next day (at least I did). The championship game is on a weekend AND its the national championship for Pete’ sake! Surely we can turn out 300+ CFC fans!

Anyway, there was a mouthy Rocket City fan talking a little smack about how many ‘noogans would actually come. We here at the Chattahooligan would love to drown him out with hundreds of supporters cheering in unison. But more than that, our hard working team deserves your support this one last time this season — win or not.

Come on down and we’ll cook you a bratwurst while we tailgate!

Absolutely thrilling! What a fantastic game! Chattanooga FC we are so proud of you. That was one gutsy performance last night. As we detailed in early entries, coming into this game with 4 quality starters unable to play was far more than a just minor concern. But our team stepped it up and pulled together to tough it out.

So we won 2-0 over the Madison 56ers in a hard fought battle. As we noted in an earlier post, we worried about Thomas Clark filling in for Russell Courtney on defense, as he is more suited for the offensive end of the field. How wrong we were! Not only did Thomas give a very solid performance on defense with some key stops, but he gave us the first go ahead goal that seemed to take the wind out of Madison. So our Man of the Match is Thomas Clark. Congratulations!

And a very close second or runner-up Man of the Match has to be Richard Masters. As the twitter folks wrote: “Richard Masters was Richard Masters.” And he was — quick, solid and dependable. He easily saved 4 great shots to grab his fourth shut out of the season. He was extremely good last night.

You can read good recaps of the game elsewhere, so we will give you our quick overview and opinion. Madison clearly dominated possession in the first half, easily 60% by our estimation. They were solid, consistent and tight in passing. CFC looked a bit tentative, tired and outmanned for most of the first half. In spite of that, we had as many scoring opportunities as Madison did. Odd.

Then in the second half, it almost seemed that the NPSL had sent a memo decreeing that now Chattanooga FC had to dominate. We came out with much greater energy and attacking mentality. It of course resulted in a goal in just under 6 minutes. And that seemed to completely deflate Madison. They were fortunate that Salazar and Espinal were not able to score their very good opportunities. But it seemed inevitable that CFC would get a second goal when Viatrov finally found Hill for the beautiful final nail in the coffin.

Our defense did a fantastic job of bending but not breaking, starting of course with our stingy gatekeeper Masters, and carrying over to Clark, Gambill, Scott and the amazing, leg extending slide-tackling of Andy Stewart. Even Calderwood gave good minutes when came in as a substitute for Beene.

All in all, it was a team effort. Nicely done. Let’s go do the same thing again tomorrow night and call it a season.

Quick scouting report:
While the 4-1 scoreline makes it appear that Sacramento had a walk in the park against Sonic FC, it was far from the case. For most of the first half and the start of the second, the Gold looked outmanned and outpossessed by Sonic. The go ahead goal by number 86 for Sacramento was the only really nice goal of the game for them. They tied Sonic on an own goal and took the lead 3-1 on poor defending and the final goal was due to the goalie being up to try and score.

While Sacramento is a good team and will no doubt be a worthy opponent, CFC should be able to hold their own against them. Their style was similar to other teams we have faced throughout the season: Atlanta FC, Pumas FC and even to some degree, FC Atlas. So we should not be surprised by anything they bring onto the field. The big question is: did Sacramento have travel legs last night or is that how they play normally?

A negative note:
What the heck NPSL? That field is a VERY FAR CRY FROM CHAMPIONSHIP QUALITY. It is small and has patches of sand (8 ft square!) and all sorts of weird seams and uneven spots. Why is it not in better condition? It seems to be an embarrassing reminder of how far our league has to go… We are quite disappointed with it.

We’re off to support Chattanooga FC in the NPSL Final Four national championship tomorrow. We here at the Chattahooligan.com will make the trek to Madison AL early enough on Thursday to see the 5:30 pm (CST) game between the 1 and 4 seeds, FC Sonic and Sacramento — to get a sneak preview of our competition for Saturday.

We’re rallying all the fans of Chattanooga FC to come out and cheer on our team to victory in the 8:00 pm (CST) semi-final against the Madison 56ers… Who’s with us?

If you are going too, tweet us (@chattahooligan), email us (chat@chattahooligan.com) or post comments to this blog. We’ve been destroying NPSL attendance records all year long. Let’s blow the competition away down there with a huge turnout in Madison AL tomorrow!

Chattahooligans Unite!

Here’s a brief overview of NPSL Final Four topics: 1. How will CFC cope with the loss of starters Russell Courtney, Tim Sparks, Ivan Heredia and Chris Ochieng? 2. What are our opponents like? 3. How many Chattahooligans will make the trek to the semi-final on Thursday night?

Here are our attempts at answers:

1. Four seasoned starters out:
This past weekend defender Russell Courtney suffered a knee injury that will keep him out of the Final Four competition. He is the latest in a slow series of starters lost over the course of the season. As you’ve noticed, up until now we’ve been able to carry on without noticeable drop off in talent. Tim Sparks went out early in the season with a hamstring injury, and we seemed to find a suitable replacement as the defense held strong in games that followed. Ivan Heredia left the squad over halfway through the season due to schedule or work complications of some sort. Still we managed to maintain the midfield. Two weeks ago Chris Ochieng went out with a dislocated ankle. We seemed to score well against Rocket City anyway, but were decidedly lacking in attack against DC United.

While Courtney was able to play most of Saturday’s game against DC United, these three other starters were absent. In our estimation, the DC United squad was a little bit stronger than the FC Atlas U23 squad, though the two teams are very close in talent level. We had those three players for the Atlas game and we won 2-1. Without them we lost 3-0 to DC.

So is the sum of the loss greater than the individual parts? Of course.

The bigger question is: how to substitute for Russell? It has been clear that Coach Crossman has been reluctant to substitute any defenders until a good lead is established. Thomas Clark is equal to Courtney in size, but based on his defending last year vs his offensive position this year, it is clear he is not comfortable as a defender. John Calderwood played well for short minutes in the past 3 games, but is he strong enough for a whole game?

Well, it won’t be easy and we do not envy the coaching staff. Perhaps a large part of the answer lies in the level of skill in the competition. Should they be equal to our NPSL Southeast Region opponents, we have a fine chance. But if they are stronger?

2. Our opponents:
Our opponent on Thursday, the third ranked Madison 56ers from the NPSL Midwest Region: This is the third Midwest Championship for the Wisconsin team. They went 8-2-0 in NPSL league play, with losses to the Chicago Fire NPSL squad as well as the St Paul Twin Stars. They went 2-3-1 in friendly matches for an overall record of 10-5-1. The team seems well-balanced statistically, with many players scoring a few goals. Scoring leader Adam Lysak has 5 goals on the season. Starting goalkeeper Jon Szafranski averages one goal against per game.

They are coached by Head Coach Jim Launder and Assistant Coach (and player?) Henry Aiyenero. Launder, 57, was fired by University of Wisconsin in February of 1997, after 15 years as coach and a little more than a year after leading the Badgers to the NCAA title. The Badgers made the NCAA tournament in four of Launder’s final six years but have not returned since. After leaving UW, Launder was hired as the coach at Dayton, where he took a team that finished in last place the year before and led it to the Atlantic-10 title and an NCAA berth in his first year. Launder works as a scout for the U.S. Soccer Academies Program, is the coach of the Princeton 56ers and serves as director of coaching for the WYSA.

Fourth ranked Sacramento will face first place FC Sonic in the other semi:

Sacramento Gold
Managed by Richard Novoa, Sacramento went 7-1-2 in NPSL league play, winning both the West Region regular season and the playoff tournament. The West Region champions have a player who has 15 goals in only 7 games! Manolo Piña was even out for a month with a face injury. Now he is back and is on a roll.

FC Sonic
Coached by Dave Weitzman, the Lehigh Valley (PA) won the NPSL Northeast Region’s Keystone Conference by one point with a 1-0 88th minute goal victory over the Eerie Admirals. FC Sonic finished the regular season with a 10-1-1 record in NPSL play. They then went on to defeat the New York Red Bulls Academy team 3-2 in the Northeast Region Championship.

Coach Weitzman is also General Manger at Iron Lakes Sports Club and Director of Operations for FC Lehigh United youth soccer club. His previous coaching experience includes positions at Muhlenberg College, Lehigh University, Parkland High School and other Lehigh Valley soccer programs.

FC Sonic won the NPSL 2008 National Championship as the “Pennsylvania Stoners” but did not participate in the 2009 season.

3. How many Chattahooligans will be there on Thursday?
Our team needs you. Let’s swamp Madison AL with at least 250 fans on Thursday and cheer our CFC onto victory!

Just back from a hot and long trip to Washington DC’s RFK stadium to see our own Chattanooga FC do battle with DC United’ Super 20 team. As you now, we were handled relatively easily and lost 3-0. We’ll give you our full evaluation tomorrow but here are some main notes:

1. Who was that?
I’ve seen CFC play 9 games prior to this one, and this team sure did not play like CFC. We looked out of sorts: hot, confused and mostly nervous. Our best players did not play well (and it did not look like it was all DC United’s doing).

2. Hot Hot Heat
When we got out of the car it was reading 104º F. The heat and humidity were oppressive and draining for us and the hardest thing we did was to climb stairs to our seats. We never seemed to stop sweating. Can’t imagine what it felt like to players actually running hard for 80 minutes.

3. A Good Experience?
This loss may be (I say may be) a good experience for us to realize we are not invincible… A good thing to motivate us as we move into the NPSL National tourney.

More added July 27:

El Conductor’s assessment/comment below is quite accurate and echos our own thoughts here at the Chattahooligan. The DCU defense was quite solid — we really only had 3 shots on goal by our count. However our own defense was easily outmatched by DCU’s strikers too. They were fast, skilled and strong.

Even so, this does not explain why our team seemed to have trouble with trapping the ball and making relatively simple passes. Our traps seemed to bounce six feet away from our players doing the trapping, and unforced errors happened far too often with what should’ve been a simple pass. Neither of these were caused by DC. Was it nerves? Apprehension about putting on a good show and getting ‘seen’? We think so.

Unfortunately almost no one played up to their potential. Salazar, Espinal, Warren, Courtney and Glover were quite disappointing. While the defense (Gambill, Courtney, Stewart and Scott) made some definite stops, they also made gaffs that allowed the three goals. The only pseudo-bright spot seemed to be Viatrov. But even then he missed two goal opportunities himself.

So while the loss was disappointing and a blow to our pride, the knockout punch was to lose Russell Courtney, who was injured in the second half and is out for the season. He will be difficult to replace.

So, the big question is: Does this loss demoralize us or renew our efforts to finish the season with 2 big wins?

And — after tallying all the comments and emails — we have a winner by the slimmest of margins: Luis Salazar is a vote ahead of Richard Masters for our regular season CFC MVP!

However, if there is one thing we learned in looking at all your comments, its that you had a hard time thinking of any player more valuable than the TEAM itself. We think that is absolutely wonderful! Chattanooga FC you are an amazing sum of parts! Keep it up!

We will see you in DC and then onto victory in Madison!

We promised to do some research and write up a review of the upcoming NPSL Final Four… well, Madison Soccer Central wrote up a nice brief article that says it better than we could. (Note how they have proper respect for The Chattahooligans).

Click here to read the Madison Soccer Central article.

Okay Chattahooligans! You’ve now had nine games (five of them at home) to watch Chattanooga FC play. It’s time for us to name The Chattahooligan’s Most Valuable player of the regular season. Who will it be? Well, we’ll simply go with a democratic approach: whoever receives the most votes by email or by comments posted to this blog entry by 10:00pm on Thursday July 22 will win the title.

Let us get you started. We’ll give you players from each position that we think are worthy of the MVP honor:

Goalkeeper: Richard Masters
Defender: Josh Scott
Midfielder: Luis Salazar or Fynn Glover
Striker: Chris Ochieng or Irvin Espinal

Do you have others? Vote and tell us why! Post a comment here and/or email us at chat@chattahooligan.com!

What a fantastic way to end the home season: 5,000-plus fans, four great goals against a decent opponent and an undefeated regular season! The only things to mar the festive occasion were the oppressive humidity and running out of beer by the 65th minute, but even those failed to dampen spirits.

While Rocket City United had little to play for (save perhaps the role of spoiler, to keep CFC from ending the season undefeated in league play), they seem to wilt under pressure as soon as Irvin Espinal scored in the fifth minute. The second best team in the league started off strong, with a very good first ten minutes (aside from the goal), and then seem to completely cave in when Luis Salazar poked in goal number two halfway through the first period. The complete implosion came with Drew Courtney’s cheeky goal off of a goalie-kick-turned-ricochet-off-of-his-own-defender… with the insult added to injury coming as fan-favorite (and CFC co-founder) Thomas Clark showed off his version of the “one man wrecking crew” approach to goal scoring.

The whole team played so well it is hard for us to name the man of the match, but we think that once again, number 7 and halftime spokesplayer, Luis Salazar deserves the honor. Although we have to say Irvin Espinal showed real class when he sprinted the whole length of the field to dedicate his goal to leading goalscorer Chris Ochieng, who suffered a bad ankle dislocation in practice on Thursday and is out for the rest of the season. This is especially heartwarming considering Espinal (a starter for the last several games of 2009) has had far less playing time and very few starts due to Ochieng’s appearance this year. Yes folks, this is what Chattanooga FC is all about: TEAM.

So what is next for our team?

They travel to DC United to play the Super-20 team (along with some reserves from the MLS squad) this Saturday, then stick around to watch DC United take on Portsmouth later that night. That should be fun. We might just go to see that.

But more importantly, CFC goes on to play in the NPSL Final Four in a semi-final match on Thursday, July 29 at 9:00pm EST (8 CST) in Madison, AL — just outside Huntsville. Chattanooga: lets show up in droves to support our team! We want to come home with that National Championship trophy!

What’s the competition look like? We’re not to sure, but over the next couple days we will do some snooping and will try to write up a little scouting report for you. In the meantime revel in these two facts:

1. Over 22,000 fans attended the five home games this season. That is an average attendance of 4,400. That is just 300 less than the league average for the United Soccer Leagues last year — and these are professional teams with paid players and staff working to drum up fans!

2. Chattanooga went undefeated: 6-0-2 in league play and 7-0-2 including friendly matches. Counting the last six games of last season, Chattanooga FC is 11-1-3 in its last fifteen matches. Only one loss in 15 matches! Not too shabby!

And keep your eyes peeled for upcoming articles: especially for the 2010 Regular Season MVP. We need your votes Chattahooligans! Who was the most valuable player to the team in the CFC regular season in your opinion? Email us or post your votes!