Ouakam (USO) vs. Casa Sport

With one professional soccer game under my belt I returned to Stade Demba Diop with a new found confidence and feeling of belonging. This game I had been looking forward to since the final whistle blew last night (HLM vs. AS Pikine). This fixture featured two of the top three in the Senegalese Ligue 1, I couldn’t find an up to date table but I’m quite sure Ouakam is at the top with third place Casa Sport (from Ziguinchor, capital of Casamance in Southern Senegal). The atmosphere was accordingly more energetic and the stadium much fuller. The game itself also had the feel of a more important, more hotly contested encounter than the previous night. The referee had is hands full, and so did the stretcher crew, who had to run onto the field every time a player went down for an extended period of time. This was a pretty common occurrence in a relatively violent match such as this one, and at one point I even counted three players on the ground writhing in pain at one time from separate plays. Despite the drama it was an interesting game.

The first goal came from a warranted penalty kick decision after a Ouakam defender missed timed his challenge on a Casa Sport striker. The shot finally took place after a long ordeal that involved the referee blowing his whistle mid-approach because the linesman had noticed the goalie slightly off his line. This led to a chaotic exchange between shooter and referee and goalie and linesman, once most members of both teams got involved I thought they would just abandon the whole idea of the penalty kick and start up play by kicking into the air or something.  After the pk was buried in the upper right hand corner, we enjoyed an explosion of celebration from the Casa supporters before play resumed again.

As was the story a night before, a lack of sharpness in passing and precision and composure anywhere near goal led to many potential chances gone begging. However, tonight I was pleased to see that the defending was, on the whole, not quite as glaring problematic and the goalkeepers seemed a little bit more reliable, though distribution was more often than not somewhat mindboggling.

Ouakam’s equalizer came about 15 minutes into the second half (a rough estimate as there is no scoreboard or anything at the stadium). After a clever break into the box, a lofted cross found a head on the far post who put it over the keeper into the opposite side-netting. That gave the game a much-needed jolt however the deciding goal never came, and both teams seemed somewhat please