 Bermuda Select 1 New York Cosmos 1
A heated friendly between a Bermuda Select and the New York Cosmos came to an end with both teams scoring a goal each and more importantly both teams finished the match with 11 players on the field.
Bermuda Select: Stefan Dill (Quinaceo Hunt 46th), William White (Rai Sampso (18th), Marco Warren (Justin Corday 62nd), Na’eem Griffith, Jalen Harvey, Tre Ming (Zeko White 87th), Robert Rawlins, Willie Clemons (Liam Evans 78th), Mazhye Burchall (Keishon Bean 88th), Donte Brangman, Oneko Lowe (Ahria Simons 88th) – New York Cosmos: - Jimmy Maurer, Calos Mendes, Andres Flores, Antony Taylor, Danny Szetela (Andres Mancini 64th), Juan Guerra, Ayoze, Irvin Herrera, Kalif All Hassan (Jimmy Mulligan 46th), Eugene Starikov, Ryan Richter (Michael Binns 64th)
The New York Cosmos controlled the early part of the match keeping possession having Bermuda chase, but Bermuda once they settled created a chance as Tre Ming had back to back shots just miss the target.
The teams were both guilty of some off the ball issues resulting in a few stoppages for order to be restored, but they both went to the break with the score deadlocked at 0 – 0.
With Bermuda having the wind at their back for the second half, and it paid off in the 58th minute when Ming spotted the New York Cosmos goalkeeper Maurer off his line and his long range shot went in off the fly.
This goal brought out some stronger challenges from the New York Cosmos players, with the Bermuda Select players refusing to back down, making a few hard tackles of their own.
The game almost got out of hand, when a cross in the New York Cosmos box saw Bermuda Select captain Harvey and New York Cosmos defender Taylor both receive yellow cards for unsportsmanlike behavior.
With the referee assistant indicating the extra minutes of stoppage time the New York Cosmos threw everything they had to offer at the Bermuda defence and they got the result they were looking for when Flores blasted home a shot from some 12 yards out to level the match at 1 – 1.
Instead of one more chance to score, it was one more incident involving both sets of benches, a off the ball incident took place in front of the Bermuda bench and Bermuda coach Kyle Lightbourne needed to be restrained as things boiled out, however once again order was restored and the match came to an end.
“Today’s match was a good test for us,” said Cosmos Head Coach and Sporting Director, Giovanni Savarese. “We are happy because the team responded well. We will now redirect our attention to our game against Puerto Rico FC next Saturday.”
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