Cisco / Google…Clash of the Titans?
St. Patrick’s Day witnessed Cisco’s soccer team in action in its debut match against Google at Ortega Park in Sunnyvale as part of the SBASL 2009 Corporate League. Playing fortuitously in all green uniforms, the Cisco side was hoping for some of the ‘luck of the Irish’ to propel them to victory. In a fitting tribute to the strength of both companies, the game resulted in a tie, 4-4.
Google and Cisco both had some good players, although it seemed that youth was on the Google side. Cisco started shakily, ceding a goal within 30 seconds of the kick off and another 2 minutes later. The initial shock and Google-awe gave way to some reasonable passing and tenacious battling against a mixed side.
In a game of two halves, both sides fielded large squads and substituted players frequently. At times this excessive subbing at almost every stoppage caused confusion, and both teams’ organization on the field was troubled and intermittent. The Cisco defense seemed strong and disciplined, and were able to keep Google at bay much of the game, but in the end were outpaced by a couple of Google athletes who were the highlights of the Google team. The game was cleanly fought, with slide tackles outlawed and the sportsmanship was clear and civilized in a mostly clean game.
Cisco recovered 2 goals in part due to some flawed Google defense. In the 34th minute, the Google ‘keeper came too far out of his box and the Juan Munoz was able to trundle a goal in for Cisco from outside the penalty area with almost no-one in the 18 yard box. Alessandro Boch knocked in another from a corner.
Later in the game saw the Google outdone by seemingly random offside calls, but in the end Google dug deep and were able to put 2 more in the onion bag.
Final score was a whopping 4-4 including a penalty in the first half in Cisco’s favor that Eric Donkers fired into the top right corner with some confidence.
At the end of the day, sport was clearly the winner. Cisco takes on Oracle next week.
Cisco Goals - Chi Nguyen 15, Eric Donkers 18 pen, Juan Munoz 34, Alessandro Boch 70 (Managers: Chris Noland, Mike Winter)
Posted by Marc Musgrove at 04:01AM PST
Marc Musgrove
Global PR Manager
Andrew Yim Mar 25, 2009
First!