The Villages SC 1–1 North Carolina Fusion U23 (a.e.t.) · Fusion win 5–4 on penalties
It took nearly three hours of lightning delays before anybody kicked a ball, and then another two hours to decide it. By the time it finished, most of a Friday night had gone.
We are out of the playoffs.
Tobias Palio put North Carolina Fusion ahead in the nineteenth minute.
We equalised four minutes before the break. Daniel Oliveira won a turnover, carried it to the edge of the box and put a cross in; Fabio Amaral headed it down and in. 41st minute, and level at half time.
Neither side could find another. Not in the second half, not in thirty minutes of extra time. Our centre backs played the full 120.
Then the penalties.
Fred Ferreira took ours first, with Jackson Lee handing him the ball personally.
Nikolai Muench put his into the top corner — as good a penalty as you will see, and nothing a goalkeeper can do about it. Nicolas Vitter, who had played the full 120 minutes at centre back and gone close twice in the match, buried his just as well. Kevin Duque Cardona stepped up needing to score to keep us alive, and scored.
Four from four, and it still was not enough.
At 4–3 to Fusion, their captain Gomiero walked forward knowing that scoring would end it. He wound up from the left and put it straight past Jackson Lee, who got a hand to the line and could not keep it out.
5–4.
Our starting eleven: Jackson Lee in goal, behind Nicolas Vitter, Yago Lopez, Gustavo Murtha, Vandyke Gyau and Nikolai Muench; Fernando Abreu, Daniel Oliveira and Kevin Duque Cardona in midfield; Fabio Amaral and Fred Ferreira up top.
We came into this on nine wins, two defeats and three draws. It was our fifth playoff appearance in six years as a club, and we were trying to reach a conference final for the first time since 2018.
North Carolina Fusion go on to play Asheville City, who had beaten Bravos Valley Cavalry in the earlier quarterfinal here.
And to everybody who stayed.
This match was scheduled, delayed, delayed again, and eventually played to a finish that did not come until the early hours. You could have gone home at any point across those three hours and nobody would have said a word about it.
You did not. You were still here for the fifth penalty.
That is the reason this club wanted its own ground, and on a night when there was nothing else to take from the evening, it was the thing worth taking.
Thank you.
