(NPSL 2018 Northeast Region Final) New York Cosmos B 2v3 FC Motown









Saturday 21st July 2018
Columbia University, New York   Attendance - 

 Defensive mistakes ended the season for Cosmos as they went down 3v2 to FC Motown. Motown found the Cosmos net 3 times without response in a spell in the 2nd half before Cosmos pulled back 2 goals from Berterame in stoppage time.
The game was eagerly awaited with both sides having dominated their divisions in regular season play with Motown boasting players with experience at playing at a higher level in their ranks. 
New York made a bright start to the game and created a number of early chances. Wojcik was just inches away from connecting with a low cross and Brown squandered a good chance on goal all within the first 10mins. Bartley's pace was causing Motown problems and fashioned a shooting chance for himself after some good play, but his well stuck shot was well saved.
There was little from Motown in the early stages apart from a good piece of play from Calderon whose long range shot went narrowly over. An injury to Barrajo almost led to a Motown goal on 25mins as the injured Cosmos man kept Chris Katona onside, but Tenjo did well to make the save as the striker ran in on goal.
New York found chances harder to come by as the half wore on as Motown started to come more into the game.
Cosmos started the 2nd half the stronger side but Motown scored the opening goal courtesy of a poor mistake by Neeskens. A low cross should have been easily cut out but Neeskens allowed the ball to squirm under his foot and Calderon made no mistake with the gift to put his side ahead.
Motown doubled their lead on the hour mark as a long ball saw Katona outpace the high line of the Cosmos defence and he fired pace Tenjo. It got worse for Cosmos as Cosmos failed to deal with an attack and Kavanagh was upended in the box for a penalty which Duka converted to leave Cosmos with a mountain to climb, with the Motown defence now giving Cosmos little joy..It could have been 4v0 as Motown continued to threaten, Tenjo saving well from Calderon and Duka failing to hit the target from the rebound.
Amazingly at 3v0 down in stoppage time the Cosmos were not dead yet thanks to som late magic from Berterame. 
The Cosmos sub had barely been on 5mins but fired a piledriver into the Motown goal from long range and followed it up with a tap in seconds later from Espinal's free-kick driven into the Motown box. With the last kick of the game Espinal almost produced an equaliser as he had a free-kick saved, but it will be Motown who advances in the playoffs.




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