The New York Cosmos quickly rallied from a first half deficit to defeat the 10-man San Antonio Scorpions, 2-1, in a North American Soccer League Fall Season match Saturday night at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium.
The Scorpions scored the game’s first goal in the waning seconds of the first half when Milton Palacios received a cross from Billy Forbes and put his shot in off the far post to give the defending Soccer Bowl champions a lead.
The advantage would be brief, though as Leo Fernandes followed up a long distance volley off the crossbar by Raúl and headed in the equalizer seconds later.
Fernandes had a similar chance to score in the 40th minute when he pounced on the rebound of a saved Adam Moffat shot, but the midfielder was ruled to have played the ball in an offside position.
“It sucks, to be honest. You go from such a high and they’re saying no goal. You just have to turn around and keep working,” Fernandes said. “Finally I get rewarded with the goal. I was happy, right before halftime, too. I thought that was very important for us.”
“I like to put myself in dangerous positions. Sometimes offside, but sometimes I’m not, which is good,” Fernandes said. “Right now I think the ball is bouncing my way, I’m a step ahead of the defenders and the goals are going in, which is very good.”
It was his team-leading sixth goal of the year. It was also the third consecutive game Fernandes had a goal called back for offside.
“We were joking with him that this was the third game in a row he had a goal called back for offside,” goalkeeper Jimmy Maurer said. “But guys like [Filippo] Inzaghi with Milan, he gets called offside 10 times, but the 11th time you score it counts the same.”
“Before the half tying the game is very important because it gave us more confidence for the second half,” said assistant coach Carlos Llamosa, who filled in for the suspended Giovanni Savarese.
The Cosmos (3-3-1), who stretched their home unbeaten streak to 15 games dating back to a 1-0 defeat to Carolina on Aug. 2, 2014, found the winner two minutes into the second half.
Hunter Freeman tried to connect with Lucky Mkosana on a free kick, but the ball deflected off San Antonio defender Brad Rusin and into the net for an own goal to give the Cosmos a 2-1 advantage.
The Cosmos made sure that result held up, rarely conceding any dangerous scoring chances from a Scorpions team that defended deep and tried to utilize their speed up front on counters.
“I’m very pleased with the performance of the team defensively, not only the back four. Everyone contributed to this win defensively,” Llamosa said. “In the second half they had the same mentality, they drop a lot of numbers and counterattack with the fast guys up front, but I think the back line and also Moffat and Raul sometimes, they helped us defend those counter attacks.”
After a hiccup early in the fall season, the Cosmos are unbeaten in five straight matches and are now in a three-way tie for third with FC Edmonton and Minnesota, while maintaining a two-point lead over Ottawa Fury FC in the league’s overall standings.
The Cosmos return to the road next Saturday to face the Carolina RailHawks.
“Where we are in the standings, dropping some games early on this fall season, we need these points, especially home. It gives you that base,” Maurer said. “When you win at home, then you can steal points on the road. That’s how you climb up the standings.”
