Well at least one ‘Nando scored this weekend. This goal comes courtesy of Fernando De Moraes. Who?
Exactly (although he does have a wikipedia page). He’s a player for South Melbourne in Australia’s Victorian Premier League. What’s fun here isn’t who scored, but how he scored.
You can probably work back from the action in the video to figure out what happened, but we prefer this rather descriptive account from the Sunshine George Cross FC website.
Georgie defender Jack Webster went down injured and goalkeeper Martin John kicked the ball out so his mate could receive attention. On resumption South Melbourne’s Fernando De Moreas threw the ball back to an applauding Martin John who was standing just inside the penalty area. John allowed the ball go past him, took two touches with his feet away from De Moreas, who followed up his throw in and sprinted up behind Martin John. De Moreas took the ball off a bewildered Martin John and ran the ball into an empty net for the only goal of the game. All hell broke loose from the Georgie camp at what they considered to be a very poor sporting act, as the players and spectators vented their anger at the controversial goal. The game was held up for five minutes as players argued about the legitimacy of the goal. Referee Perry Mur who did not see the incident finally awarded the goal after consulting with his assistant. The remaining 10 minutes degenerated into a farce as players of both sides continued to argue with cautions being issued to both teams.
Maybe the animosity was only stoked by De Moraes celebrating like he’s led the Socceroos to the World Cup finals.
It was the game’s only goal, and on the result, South Melbourne advanced to the finals of the VPL (they play Hume City FC next weekend).
Okay, the keeper is totally at fault, but if you’re going to go ahead and do the ‘sporting’ thing and give the ball back to the opponent, then why do the douchebag thing and subsequently capitalize on the opponent giving up play deep in their own third because of an injury?
Fortunately for all involved they play in the Victorian Premier League, which is only slightly less consequential than MLS.
From the linked recap: nuggetty defender
What the hell is that? A pot dealer defender? A wee little defender?
Fernando De Moraes: My New Hero
Nice avatar hijack…WTF?
yeah…what happened to Groundskeeper Willy?
he’s back. aye.
Obviously not back for me.
Yet older comments are the original avatar.
Strike that. Reverse it.
Nando actually asked the keeper whether he wanted the ball out for a goal kick, or to him… John (keeper) should have picked it up. Instead he decided to take a leisurely stroll across face of goal.
As far as I’m concerned, since there are no concrete fair play rules, after one touch from the opposition, it’s game on again.
In another make-or-break finals game on the same day, another team decided NOT to give the ball back to their opposition in a classic fair play situation, and subsequently scored in the dying seconds of the game.
(See here: http://premier.footballfedvic.com.au/pageitem.aspx?id=23364&id2=1&eID=7250&entityID=7250)
Who was more fair?
Thanks fuzzzzzzzzzzzzzy. We’ll look into that.