(SUN BOWL STADIUM, El Paso, TX) - Since they first met two weeks ago, both the El Paso Patriots and Indianapolis Blast had sent in their orders to Charles Atlas for his remedy on how not to be a 98-pound weakling, beefing up their rosters especially for this night, each looking to kick sand in the other's face and move on to the third round of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
Well, they got the sand, anyway.
In a match where virtually every move from the coin toss on was charged with importance, the Patriots prevailed in double overtime, 1-0, beating the Blast in an ugly, hard-fought, foul-ridden, wind-blown affair.
El Paso now awaits the draw to find out their opponent in Open Cup play.
Maybe Indianapolis head coach Jimmy McDonald will ask Mr. Atlas for a refund. On paper, at least, it looked going into the match as if Indiana may have gotten into Charles' medicine cabinet and found his real muscle-building secret.
Young Canadian national team star Semir Mesanovic played his first match for the Blast against El Paso, garnering a goal and an assist in the teams' 2-2 tie in Indianapolis. Add to that former MLS forward Jamar Beasley, DaMarcus' older brother. Then McDonald raided the Dallas Burn's cabinet to bring in midfielder Jordan Stone, the U-20 U.S. national teamer, as well as midfielder Lazo Alvanja, a former Burn player.
The Blast were clearly looking to bulk up on offense after posting just three skinny goals in five matches, garnering an 0-4-1 record.
McDonald's stockpiling of talent over the last three weeks may yet reap rewards, but on Friday night it was as hard to find evidence of that as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Contrast that with the Patriots comparatively meager pickups of goalkeeper Scott Alexander, a member of the LA Galaxy's developmental squad for the past two years, and Laurenco Andrade de Souza, a young Brazilian forward who led Cobras of Cd. Juárez (First Division-A, Mexico) in scoring this past season.
In this match, though, it was El Paso that dominated in every facet except the scoreboard.
It all started innocently enough. Indy won the coin toss, which appeared innocuous at the time. The Blast elected to defend the north goal in the first half.
Suddenly, almost on cue for the kickoff, 50-mile-per-hour gusts moved in from the north and east, bringing a fog of fine powdered sand from the direction of White Sands National Park in New Mexico. And Indianapolis' coin toss victory proved to be an amazing stroke of good fortune. Visions of 40-yard wind-assisted bombs being dropped on El Paso goalkeeper Scott Alexander must have been dancing in the heads of more than one Blast player.
It would have been comical had it not been so hard to watch. So many times in the first half El Paso looked like it was running uphill. More than one Patriots' clearance attempt boomeranged right back, turning into a jump ball for either team.
Whatever offense the Patriots were hoping to generate, they would have to produce it moving into the howling desert windstorm.
But even with nature's deck seemingly stacked against them, El Paso dominated the run of play. As much as the Patriots were running uphill, Indianapolis was running downhill, and not nearly fast enough.
For a team that loves to lob, the wind turned out to be too much. Sometimes it looked like Indy was playing a one-sided version of catch with Alexander.
Good thing for many of the Patriots that they elected to go with the shaved head look this week. It was definitely a bad hair day.
El Paso ended up outshooting the Blast, 6-3, in the first half, including an unlikely pair of rockets from Omar Millan, the hardest-working forward in show business.
Millan's game is to take it straight at the defense, which he does with passion. But in the first half he was forced to show some leg, as the Patriots were forced to keep the ball on the ground, meaning none of Millan's usual hard runs into the area challenging defenses with balls sent in from the wing. This time he had to set up his own offense.
The young forward from McAllen, TX, obliged, showing off a strong set of gams by cracking two shots that went just wide of net, forced Blast netminder Josh Lynk to dive, and making folks wonder if they really knew which way the wind was blowing.
Then, just as quickly as the gusts showed up, they disappeared at halftime. It was still a bit breezy, but there would be nothing slapstick about the rest of the match, which settled into a nasty routine of hard fouls and missed connections.
Make no mistake, Indianapolis played rough from the beginning, trying to make a point with the smaller but more agile Patriots that there would be no cumbia on the field for them this evening.
Fine, guys, but the wind had already sent that message. Plus El Paso has its own reputation for temper, actually out-fouling Jimmy's boys 11-9 in the first half.
It was also painfully obvious that, perhaps because they have so many new players, the Blast has very little in the way of setup from the midfield. They continued to opt instead for the fleet feet of Beasley to challenge the defense, lofting long balls from the back.
But this played right into one of the Patriots' strongest areas - middle defense. Sidnei dos Santos and gang frankly ate Jamar's lunch and didn't bother to leave him the crumbs. They matched the lanky speedster almost stride-for-stride and Beasley was never truly open the entire night.
As for Mesanovic, who tortured El Paso back home in Indiana, he was a non-factor, not even getting off a shot in his 80 minutes of action.
But El Paso's aim just kept getting better - at least until they had to pull the trigger.
Perhaps the best scoring chance of the second half for El Paso came in the 48th minute. On a corner kick Joel Rios barreled down the middle to fire a point-blank shot at Lynk, who denied the hard ball. But there was a rebound which came to Andrade standing seven feet away at the left post. Andrade one-timed the shot, but amazingly Lynk was there again to put this ball over the goal line. The resulting corner came to nothing.
And so it went, a parade of long balls and missed shots.
But El Paso was getting more of the opportunities, outshooting Indianapolis, 9-2, in the second half.
Meanwhile, the Patriots began their substitutions in the 62nd minute, subbing in Tim Pierce for Millan. El Paso head coach Fernando Gutierrez would bring in four of his five substitutions before McDonald brought in his first, subbing in Mike Mucino for Mesanovic in the 80th minute, and even then there would only be three total.
Whether or not that played a factor, El Paso continued to pour in more shots, even into the two overtimes.
Godfrey Tenoff had the most serious chance for Indianapolis overtime, coming out through traffic to take the ball and fire it on net. But Alexander was in place to make the save, snuffing out the Blast's most serious challenge of the night.
The Patriots countered in the 97th, though, as Griego shot the ball hard on goal. Lynk was there, but the rebound bounced out, and Pierce, with a defender on his tail and an empty net, overran the ball.
El Paso began to close in hard, now, with fresher legs, better offense and more confidence.
Again in the second overtime El Paso came close as Jose Lomeli centered a beautiful inswinging kick in the run of play to Griego in the 112th, but the shot was tipped by the determined Lynk.
Finally, the waters parted in the final minute before penalty kicks.
On the second of two straight corners, Indianapolis was able to clear the ball outside of the box. But Carlos Martinez stepped up to send the ball back into the area where it came to Andrade. Standing on the left side of the six-yard box, Andrade had just enough time to send his bullet to the far post and in, beating a diving Lynk to mercifully end the match with his golden goal, sending the Patriots through to the Open Cup's third round for the first time since 1999.
EL PASO 1, INDIANAPOLIS 0
Indianapolis 0-0-0-0 - 0
El Paso 0-0-0-1 - 1
Scoring: ELP, Andrade (120)
BLAST: GK Josh Lynk, D Gino DiGuardi, D John Swann, D Mali Walton, D Andrew Rocco (114, D Mark Allen), M Vorgen Less (87, M James Prosser), M Godfrey Tenoff, M Jordan Stone, M Justin MacMillian, F Semir Mesanovic (80, F Mike Mucino), F Jamar Beasley.
PATRIOTS: GK Scott Alexander, D Sidnei dos Santos, D Joel Rios, D Carlos Martinez, D Federico Juárez, M Paul Cabrera (79, M Ahmed Figueroa), M Enrique Cervantes (67, M Guillermo McFarlane), M Junro Narita (77, M Javier Carrasco; 33, M Jose Lomeli), F Michael Griego, F Laurenco Andrade, F Omar Millan (62, Tim Pierce).
Shots: IND 3-2-0-0 - 5, ELP 6-9-1-3 - 13. Saves: IND 1-3-0-1 - 5, ELP 2-2-0-0 - 4. Fouls: IND 9-14-5-5 - 33, ELP 11-10-3-2 - 26. Offsides: IND 3-2-0-1 - 6, ELP 0-1-1-3 - 5. Corner Kicks: IND 1-1-1-0 - 3, ELP 3-3-1-2 - 9. Cautions: IND 4 (10, Tenoff; 38, Stone; 52, DiGuardi; 90, Swann), ELP 2 (45, Cabrera; 108, Juárez). Officials: R, Jasen Anno. L, Fernando Galvan, Jeremy Vehar. 4, Andrew Gage. Attendance: 498.
