Details to follow.

Claudio Lazar protected the lead stopping a penalty kick in the 86th minute of play, while Abdul Wali Aman scored his third goal in four matches, catching the rebound from another masterful Anderson Prestes free kick early in the second half to score the match’s only goal.

The Reds sit at 2-2 in their four-game road trip so far and have yielded one goal in the 270 minutes of play since a long team talk followed an ugly defeat at Tacoma last Friday.

Next up for the Reds is their last Canada game, against Victoria Saturday.  Then, they return Stateside for a game in Vancouver, Wash., against the Portland Timbers June 12.

The win improves the Reds’ record to 2-5. The Whitecaps Residency dropped to 0-2-1.

The last time the Reds won on the road was last week at Seattle-based Washington Crossfire. Prior to that, it was in 2008.

Abbotsford is turning quite a few heads this year, with a respectable –if early– fifth place.

What is disappointing, entirely from an outsider’s point of view, is the fact that it was a shutout. Abbotsford’s backline is famously porous this year (second worst in the league, coming into the game against the Reds).
The Reds’ back four has had its issues, too, but the team seemed to get it right against the Crossfire. The team still has three more games left in this road trip and the next one looks like the most winnable of them, against the still untested (two games played) Vancouver Whitecaps on Thursday.
After that, the Victoria Highlanders and the Portland Timbers loom large.

Abdulwali Aman scored in the second minute of the game, a shot along the left side of the endline that tricked Crossfire’s goalie Herrick and snuck into the back of the net.

“When you score the first goal early, everything kind of helps,” head coach Alex Silva said.

What followed was an intense back and forth game that saw the Yakima backline bend but not break and some good opportunities by Yakima go to waste.

One of the keys was a much sturdier backline than what the fans saw against Tacoma. Dropping two midfielders back helped retain control of the ball, Silva said.

Goalie Claudio Lazar agreed. “The guys were determined today,” he said.

At the end, Yakima prevailed thanks to their cohesive work as a team, which was the point of that fabled team meeting at the end of the loss to Tacoma Friday night, which lasted so long into the night the stadium personnel asked them to leave because it was time to close the stadium for the night.

“The meeting was very important,” Alex Silva said. “It was important for every player to come out and say what they were feeling.”

The result was the first early lead, the first shutout and the first win in a season that looked to be turning sour in a hurry and which now has at least the faint scent of hope for what’s ahead.

“It’s a big weight off our shoulders,” said Alvaro Valencia. “We needed that big win just to move on forward.”

The team had trouble figuring out  what they were doing wrong and why they were 0-4 when they had oodles of talent, Valencia added. The team meeting helped, he added.

“We always knew we had a talented team,” said Ukraine-born Russian defender Ivan Popov. “Things worked out today.”

It wasn’t easy for the Reds. The Crossfire’s team was loaded with talent itself, too and brought constant danger via players like Jamie Finch.

“They had a few chances and a few good counterattacks,” said Warlen Silva in Portuguese. “But we kept pushing and were almost able to score the second goal.”

Kurt Russell, injured in the Tacoma game is doubtful for the first game in Canada. Vini Oliveira is still out with a leg injury and Lazar was sporting a nasty gash after colliding with one of his defenders.

“I feel just fine,” he said. “Everything is good at the end because we didn’t get scored [on].”

Next up are three games in Canada starting with Abbotsford Tuesday, Vancouver Thursday and Victoria Saturday.

Remember that if you use Internet Explorer, you need to open Windows Media Player, and type in http://vinmedia.primcast.com/vinmedia.

Enjoy.

Yakima at Washington Crossfire, live from Seattle.

The Tacoma Tide scored three times in the first 35 minutes of play to take a 3-0 lead en route to a 4-1 victory over Yakima Friday night.

It was a duel of desperadoes between two teams that two seasons ago had battled for the last playoff spot in the last week of the season and now hoped to start winning games almost a month into this year’s campaign.

Yakima wanted to start their grueling six-match road trip on a positive note and instead, it ended the match with a long team meeting to assess the future of the squad.

Yakima started the team adding some new blood to the backline, with preseason starter Chris Pintone and high-school standout Chris Beehler getting a start. It ended up with regulars Luciano 2010 DaCosta and Ivan Popov on the pitch, along with 2009 veteran Kevin Eggen, trying to solve a constant headache clad in a yellow jersey, named Rafael Cox. The speedy Tide midfielder brought constant danger to the Reds’ backline in the first half.

Spencer Shomaker opened the tab for Tacoma in the 17th minute, followed by Steve Pirotte at the 26th and finally a long-range strike by Daniel Gray left things 3-0. Yakima responded via Abdul Wali Aman in the 39th minute. After setting the preseason on fire, Aman scored its first goal of the regular season when he beat Spencer Richey on a one-on-one, sinking a shot low past the diving Tacoma keeper.

A quarter-hour into the second half, Chris Sanders, a Tacoma sub, closed out the scoring 4-1.

Yakima took a long time in leaving the pitch, huddled near their bench, with coach Alex Silva doing most –but not all– of the talking. Midfielder Jake Sagare, a coach in his own right, also offered his opinion. The talk moved to the locker room, where more players opined.

Whether the talk yields fruit will be seen today at 3 p.m. when Yakima plays the always dangerous Washington Crossfire -formerly known as the Seattle Wolves. The XF were winless until a 7-2 beating over Spokane this week. They sit now at 1-2-0

Yakima (1) at Tacoma (4)

May 28, 2010, Curtis High School Stadium, University Place, Washington.

Reds: Lazar; Valencia, Pintone, Russell and Behler. Prestes, Weslen Silva, Farley and Sagare; Warlen Silva and Aman.

Tacoma: Richey; Conrad, Norton, Knapp and Pirotte; Cox,  Tucker-Ganges, Gray and Tagney; Shomaker and Nixon.

Goals: 17′ Shomaker (TT), 26′ Pirotte (TT), 35′ Gray (TT), 39′ Aman (YR), 60′ Sanders (TT).

Yakima at Tacoma, May 28, 2010

Yakima v Portland May 22 2010