Ever since the good news came out over the weekend that Deli’s surgery to remove the cancerous mass on his kidney was successful, I’ve been thinking about his impact on the Kickers and how to showcase what he’s meant to the club.  He’s been associated with the team since 2003 when he played for the Future, the Kickers former PDL team, and led the team to the playoffs. So when we think about Deli, what do we immediately think about? Goals.  He’s scored 94 times for the Kickers since 2004 (I don’t particularly care about those three years he spent in Rochester, but he did score another 19 there according to the always reliable Wikipedia), and I’ve compiled my choice for his top 10 goals with the pro team. I’d include video of each, but a) some of the old games don’t have video available and b) I can’t seem to get YouTube embedded on here without paying for it, so you can use your imagination or look them up yourself.

So, in chronological order, here are Deli’s Top 10 goals:

May 31, 2004, Kickers 4, Virginia Beach 2

Back in the A-League days, the Kickers and the Virginia Beach Mariners competed for the James River Cup, often in doubleheader weekends.  Richmond typically won these battles, and this game was no different. This was the fourth and final match between the teams this season, with the Kickers going 3-0-1.  Deli scored twice on this day, with his first being the featured goal on the list.  The Mariners were ahead 1-0 at halftime before Richmond scored three goals in less than 10 minutes to open the second half. Deli’s goal gave the Kickers a 2-1 lead.  He was able to receive a pass at the top of the penalty area from Tony Williams and beat the goalkeeper with a low shot into the bottom right corner.  Deli would add an assist to his tally before also scoring the fourth and final goal of the day for the Kickers as they wrapped up another successful season against their rivals.

July 30, 2004, Kickers 3, Puerto Rico 2

The Kickers were a very solid team in 2004, and Deli’s rookie season was going pretty well. He scored seven goals this season, and his final one came in this game.  While the Kickers were a solid team, the Islanders were not. However, Puerto Rico found themselves ahead 2-1 in the 89th minute and looked poised to take all three points from City Stadium. At that point Rob Ukrop entered the game.  Within a minute, Deli had equalized.  Ukrop sent a hopeful cross in from the right side, and Deli was able to power home a header past the goalkeeper at the far post to seemingly salvage a point.  He would go on to get the assist on Ukrop’s winner as well, but that’s a story for another time.

September 23, 2005, Kickers 3, Rochester 1

Both Delicate and the Kickers had limped into the playoffs this season, with the striker not finding the scoresheet in league play since May.  However, they advanced via penalties over Vancouver in the first round of the playoffs (0-0 and 0-0, exciting stuff!) and faced Rochester in the semifinals.  The playoffs were two legged affairs in those days, and the Kickers hosted the first leg. Despite his struggles through the summer, Leigh picked Deli to start the game, and was that ever a good decision.  In the 13th minute, Deli played a long ball down the right touchline for McColm Cephas to run onto.  The speedy Liberian outpaced the defense and gathered the ball just as it approached the endline. After taking a touch, he sent a cross toward the penalty spot, where Deli rose above a defender to power home a header for the 1-0 lead.  He would also tap home the third goal later in the game to send the Kickers to New York with a two goal edge in the series.

September 25, 2005, Kickers 1, Rochester 1

Two days later, Deli put the stake in the heart of the Rhinos.  Despite their best efforts, the Rhinos couldn’t score in the first half and had only 45 minutes left to find two goals to send the series to extra time.  About five minutes into the second half, Chris Carrieri broke up the left flank on a counter attack and slid the ball across the field to a wide open Delicate.  He easily slid the ball underneath the keeper and put the Kickers up three goals on aggregate. Some late nonsense gave the Rhinos an equalizer from the penalty spot, but Deli nearly single-handedly put the Kickers into the final at Seattle the next week and closed down Frontier Field, Rochester’s home for their dominant years.

August 22, 2009, Kickers 1, Harrisburg 0

After three years in the wilderness that is Rochester, Deli returned to the Kickers in 2009 and was immediately back to his scoring ways.  He tallied 14 times that year, none more meaningful than in the playoffs against the City Islanders.  The Kickers were hosting this semifinal, and the game went into extra time.  It looked like this would come down to penalties, but the Kickers won a corner in the 120th minute.  After the ball bounced around in the box a few times, Deli managed to find the ball at his feet only a few yards from goal, and he powered it into the net to send the Kickers into the final. It wasn’t the prettiest goal he ever scored, but last minute goals that win playoff games seem like a pretty big deal to me.

June 15, 2010, Kickers 1, Crystal Palace Baltimore 0

This was a first round Open Cup game that, and stop me if this sounds familiar, ended 0-0 after regulation.  Once again, it seemed as though penalties were looming until that man Matthew Delicate came to the rescue.  In the 119th minute, Deli was able to get on the end of a cross and head home from six yards out to defeat the second division squad and send the Kickers into a match against Real Maryland.

June 28, 2011, Kickers 2, Columbus 1

Everyone has heard the stories of the Kickers beating Sporting Kansas City in the Open Cup quarterfinals, but it’s easy to forget that they had to beat the Crew in Columbus first to get to that round. The Kickers went ahead early, but Columbus equalized by halftime.  The Kickers had the upper hand in the second half after a Crew player was sent off but couldn’t break through the defense.  Finally, in the 85th minute Deli scored the winner off a diving header from an Edson Elcock long ball to send Richmond into the quarterfinals for the first time since 2007.

August 14, 2013, Kickers 2, Orlando 0

This game clinched the regular season championship for the Kickers and capped off a late season comeback for Deli.  After not factoring into most of the early part of the season due to injury, Deli came on strong and finished with six goals in a month, the last of which was the most impressive.  Orlando had been a juggernaut since joining USL in 2011, but Deli’s two goals on the day knocked them off their perch. His second of the evening was especially noteworthy.  Brian Ownby worked his way down the left flank and sent a low cross toward the penalty spot.  Deli met the ball with his run and finished above the goalkeeper with the outside of his right foot to put the Kickers up 2 inside of half an hour.

July 12, 2014, Kickers 2, Sacramento 1

Most of the goals on this list have been headers or poacher’s goals from short distances.  This goal is certainly the exception to the rule. Almost immediately after Sacramento scored, Deli came into the game to seek an equalizer.  Spoiler alert: he got it. Jason Yeisley flicked along a long ball near midfield, and Deli, who would probably tell you he is not the fleetest of foot, got in behind the defense.  He let the ball run along and struck the ball past the keeper with his first touch of the game.  Honestly, his second goal to win the game probably could have and should have made the list, but I wanted to mix it up a little bit.

September 13, 2014, Kickers 2, Charleston 1

The Kickers were up against their oldest rival in the first round of the playoffs, the first time the two teams had met in the postseason since the USL2 Final in 2010.  Deli had finished up the season with 14 regular season goals and was up for league MVP honors.  Unfortunately, he was also dealing with an injury that kept him on the bench for this one.  However, if this list has taught us anything, it’s that Matthew Delicate has a penchant for dramatic late goals.  Regulation ended 1-1, and once again it appeared as though penalties were in the Kickers future. Deli subbed into the match in the 116th minute, presumably to take a penalty.  The Kickers had a throw deep in the Charleston half at that point, and promptly sent a cross into the box.  The Charleston keeper punched the cross away, but Juan Arbalaez sent the ball immediately back to the far post, where Deli contorted his body to head home with, once again, his first touch of the game.  It was enough to send the Kickers into the semifinals no matter how much the Battery protested and claimed offside (he wasn’t offside).

So that’s the list. Amazingly enough, even though he’s scored 14 times against Pittsburgh, not a one made my cut.  There are 84 goals not listed on here, I’d love to hear which ones you think should be in the top ten instead, or why you like a specific one I picked out. Goals are fun, let’s talk about them. And let’s hope there’s an update to this post in the future when Deli comes back and gets to 100 in his Kickers career!

So on my travels, I decided to take a roundabout way to my destination and drop in to Cincinnati for the Kickers away game last night.  Funny how that timing happened to work out.  If you’re reading this, you almost certainly already know that the game ended 1-1, so I’m not going to write a traditional recap.  Also because I’ve found that writing in that style isn’t exactly the most fun for me, so I’m going to write about what I want and how I want.  Crazy concept, right?

The FC Cincinnati setup is night and day on so many levels from what we experience in Richmond.  Some of it is better, some of it is worse.  First of all, parking.  UC is a downtown campus. Imagine if City Stadium was nestled into the middle or at least on the edge of VCU.  Yeah, it was a mess.  I didn’t realize it as I was approaching the stadium, mostly because I was trying to follow the GPS and not end up hopelessly lost.  In retrospect, pretty much every shoulder for a good half a mile being packed tight should have tipped me off.  So rather than go on a wild goose hunt, it was a parking garage for me.  Maybe there were other options, and better options, but setting up shop on level 5 across the street from the athletic complex for $10 seemed like a good enough choice at that point. Our gravel lots aren’t sexy, but you can’t beat the convenience factor, and you definitely can’t beat that wonderful price of free.

They sell beer.  They have vendors selling beer.  They have at least twenty different spots to buy beer.  This is good.  The selection, for the most part, is not.  Now, I am a self-admitted beer snob, but I saw one Sweetwater kiosk, and one Mad Tree station.  I got a Mad Tree IPA, and it was quite good. I’d recommend it if you like hoppy beers.  Everything else in the stadium was Bud/Bud Light/Miller Lite or Corona brand.  Here’s the thing though, everything was priced the same at $8.  A) Why would you ever pay $8 for a Bud Light and B) Why would you ever pay $8 for a Bud Light when you can get a much better beer for the same price?  It’s not like we didn’t have an hour delay to walk around the stadium to find the good stuff!

FC Cincinnati has figured out a way to tap into the bro culture in town.  There were plenty of families there too, but I saw a considerable number, even for the 11k+ crowd, of 20somethings coming out to the game as step one of their night out.  I’m sure the location helps their cause, and I certainly heard plenty of comments about going to the bars as I was hiking back to the car, but credit to them for making their games the cool thing to do. Of course that demographic is every sales manager’s white whale, and the Kickers have done a great job increasing attendance and enhancing the atmosphere the last couple years, but this is the next frontier in moving forward.

As for the game, I thought the team played pretty well given Sunny and Asante being unavailable.  The goal they scored was unfortunate, but that’s gotta be one of the easier to fix you can have.  I seriously doubt that Charlie spills another cross like that, it just sucks that the Cincinnati player was right there on his own. What was encouraging though was the support his teammates gave him. At and after halftime, almost every single guy went up to him and gave him a pat on the back or a hug, clearly not worried about the mistake. That’s the kind of resolve that’s good to see, because it wouldn’t be hard at all to just internally think that you have to cover your keeper even more after that happened.

Yudai is fine. I was a little worried that he got hurt again when he came off so quickly in the second half, but he said he was ok.  It was also fun to see how well he connected with the Troyer family after the game.  It’s almost like he is an adopted son to them. Again, that’s the kind of stuff you like to see from your club.

Oh yeah, Hugh Roberts scored a great goal at the final opportunity to get the tie.  That was good.  I’d expect to see him on the USL Team of the Week, in part because he had a great game outside of one loose touch early on, and also because a defender scoring merits almost automatic inclusion to the USL staff who selects the team.  Ownby should on merit be there too, since I thought he was the best player on the field, but he won’t be because he didn’t score. It’s stupid, but I guess USL can’t be bothered to actually watch and analyze their games. Looking at boxscores is much simpler.

Pittsburgh is next week, and it’s the doubleheader with the US/Paraguay game.  In a cruel twist of fate, I have a wedding to go to in Pittsburgh that day.   Not cool.  Folks, don’t let you or your loved ones schedule life events during soccer season. That’s what the offseason is for. And yes, I am a little bit bitter, thanks for asking!