Just like his coach had been prescribing, Rezart Rama tore all the way from deep in his own defending box to deep in the opponents’ box, 80-plus metres away and just like that, there was the first goal of his Forge 2.0 stint.
The 24-year-old fullback is physical –he concedes he’s sometimes too physical for CPL officiating tastes---and always thinks defence first. But ever since Forge began practicing in earnest back in February Bobby Smyrniotis has not only asked his attackers to be more aggressive defensively, but he also wants his defenders to be more aggressive offensively.
Point taken: and a dozen minutes into Sunday’s 905 Derby installment at York Lions Stadium it was 1-0, visitors’ favour. That touched off a wild west opening 30 minutes which saw all the scoring in a 2-2 draw.
Rama, a native of Athens, Greece who played in the Nottingham Forest system before joining The Hammers for their 2022 and ’23 league championship seasons, spent last year in Albania prior to returning to Hamilton this year. He made his Canadian debut three years ago this month against HFX Wanderers, whom the Forge meet in Halifax on Saturday. His first, and only other, CPL goal came a couple of months later against Pacific FC. Those are the only goals he’s scored in his five-plus years as a senior professional.
So, yes, he was glad to take the strong feed fromTristan Borges, who’d been set up by Ali Hojabrpour, and knock it home from about a metre in front of York United’s Mexican keeper Diego Urtiaga.
“I’m happy,” Rama said. “The last time I started on a first team was 10 months ago, so I was really excited to play on the Best 11 and give the best version of myself.”
The goal was not the sole indicator of Rama’s two-way diligence. After the game, you could see the blood seeping through his white socks from a cleats-up crash he’d absorbed while making a defensive tackle. It looked just like the famous bleeding sock of baseball’s Curt Schilling in the 2004 post-season.
“Just part of the game,” he shrugged.
After he scored, Rama ran directly to the Forge bench where he and his teammates mobbed veteran equipment manager Joe Hanley, who’d just received clearance to work his first game in a few weeks after being sidelined by medical issues.
“He is always the guy who is there for us,” Rama explained. “I just wanted to go to him and thank him for spending so many hours on the team.”
Rama’s exhilaration, and that of his teammates and coaches, was short-lived as their vitality seeped away and defensive mistakes led to a smashing drive from Riley Ferrazzo which evened the score less than two minutes later. Then York took the lead on Julian Altobelli’s league-leading fourth goal of the young season on a penalty kick incurred when Borges brought him down in the box.
Fittingly, though, former York star Brian Wright tied it up in the 33rdminute with a penalty kick for his second goal in as many games. A nice in-turning corner kick from Borges struck a Nine-Stripers arm for the penalty.
“I think after (his opening) goal we came down and lost focus and we thought maybe the game was over,” Rama said. “Two minutes after the goal we fell down and that’s something we’re not allowed to do. Myself and 10 more guys on the team. I hope we don’t do that again.”
Smyrniotis was of the same mind and plans to drill that home during practice this week. While noting that his side has not lost in the first four games, with two wins and a pair of draws, has taken four points off two road games, that York played well and drew confidence from their quick comeback goal and that his own team was getting into the final third of the pitch with control and relative ease, he is also concerned that Forge has let down its guard for 15-20 minutes in each of the past two games. They drew 1-1 at home prior to Sunday’s draw before an often-dangerous York also held them to a tie.
With second place HFX Wanderers coming up Saturday in a league game Saturday in Halifax and the Wanderers visiting Hamilton four days later for the Canadian Championships preliminary round Wednesday, May 7 (7p.m.), Smyrniotis wants his side to eliminate the letdowns which lead to goals against, while also calming the strong tailwinds his team usually enjoys from scoring their own goals.
“To be honest, we’ve been pretty good and consistent this year,” he told Hamilton Sports Group after his public media conference. “This is a little bit strange for us. Sometimes when you score early, you go, ‘This is going to be one of those days.’ The problem is…then you stop and you just can’t stop. We‘ve got guys who really need to kick themselves in the ass a little bit.
“We’ve lost four points in the last two games. We’re going to Halifax and you want all three points if you want to stay at the top of the table. So it’s go time.”
It might just be a tough week in practice.
Forge is in a barometer portion of their early season. They prefer to concentrate about 95 per cent of their attention on their own style and systems through the first quarter of the season before they play every team for a second time. But Halifax is undefeated and is two points ahead of them in the standings and so is Ottawa. And both are scoring goals. So Forge needs to avoid defensive mental lapses and dips in physical zest on offence.
“We believe we’re going to score goals in games, but here’s the thing,” Smyrniotis said in his media conference. “We scored two goals on 30 per cent output in the attacking part of the field. That’s not good enough: you need to increase the frequency of how and where you want to attack, and do the right things like we did on those goals.
“The first 15 minutes today were kind of good, then we relaxed. You need to be better; that’s the bottom line. Working on our processes.
“We walked forward 10 times in the first half and easily got into the final third. So obviously, why don’t we do it more? That’s where a goal came from, that’s where opportunities came from, that’s where the corner kick that led to a penalty came from. It comes from positive momentum. When something works it’s your job to keep on doing it.
“When we don’t continue doing it, it’s something we need to discuss a bit more in training.”
As we mentioned, just might be a tough week of practice.