This past Wednesday night, the Fort ALauderdale Strikers finally resumed their old rivaly with the Tampa Bay Rowdies, AKA 'Tampa Bay FC.' In a strange but exciting match which saw Fort lauderdale outshoot their cross-state rivals 24-7, the Strikers dominated play from the opening wistle, and yet had great difficulty finishing with a goal. In the 68th minute the Strikers botched a corner kick that allowed Rowdies defenseman Tsuyoshi Yoshitake to send a long ball downfield to the streaking Mike Ambersley, who calmly put in the ball into the net for his sixth goal of the season. At that point, despite having dominated the match, the Strikers seemed to be on the verge of losing the Florida Derby.
Fortunately for Fort Lauderdale, in the 90th minute of play Eduardo 'Chaco' Coudet came up big for the Strikers. A beautifully struck free kick from 25 yards out just glanced the hands of Tampa goalkeeper Jeff Attinella, giving the Strikers the equalizer that ended the match. Despite the tied score, the Strikers have managed to go undefeated in their last seven outings, although many of those outcomes have also been ties.
And so the Florida Derby is back! The Strikers now take the Derby to Tampa Bay on the Fourth of July for a re-match with their cross-state rivals, before returning on the 9th to Lockhart Stadium against the dreadfully-named Atlanta Silverbacks.
“LIKE A JEDI KNIGHT— no, better than that— A TEMPLAR KNIGHT. This is a FLASH OF PURE INSPIRATION, and let me tip my hat to the genesis of this goal: Ibarra. Lionel only absolutely LIGHTS IT UP here, he LIFTS OFF IT, FLAMETHROWERS IT PAST poor Reny Vega. It’s just as well Reny didn’t get a hand to that because it would have TAKEN IT OFF HIS WRIST. Superlative football and an out of this world BERNINI SCULPTURE of a finish." GOL TV Commentator Ray Hudson
