A shaky first half by South Georgia Tormenta saw the home team fall behind by two goals and even though they rallied late, it wasn’t enough as Central Valley ruined the season opener, claiming a 2-1 win Saturday night. 

The matchup, which featured the debut of Central Valley Head Coach and former U.S. Men’s National Team player Jermaine Jones, didn’t take long for Fuego to get on the scoreboard. Central Valley is based in Fresno, Calif.

Just 56 seconds in to the game a handball was called on Tormenta’s Tavio D’Almeida as he attempted to block a shot, resulting in a penalty kick. 

Ernesto Espinoza buried the shot to his left to put Tormenta in a hole that they would struggle to overcome throughout the first half.

Central Valley would extend their lead 20 minutes later following a free kick from the left side. Espinoza’s cross into the box wasn’t cleared by Tormenta and following a shot that hit off the left post and bounced back to the center of the box. Fuego’s Ashkanov Apollon was able to fire a shot that deflected off a player and past Tormenta goalkeeper Ford Parker to make it 2-0.

“It was a poor first half,” Tormenta Manager Ian Cameron said following the match. “It was a first half that focused too much energy on one component of the game. We were beaten on set pieces. We were beaten on second balls and I don’t think our defensive structure when we lost the ball was good enough.”

That component Cameron talked about was focusing on possession. From that standpoint, Tormenta did what they wanted, ending the game with nearly two-thirds of the time of possession, but South Georgia wasn’t able to find the final touch often enough to come away with a win or even a draw.

“There were moments with ball movement that we arrived in really good spots but the final third product wasn’t good enough,” he said. “There were times when the attacking players arrived and should have done more with the ball. (Fuego) had fewer moments to do well and did more with it than the amount of times we arrived and didn’t do enough.”

Tormenta’s second half was more composed as they settled in more to the flow of the game and were able to continue to create chances. In the 83rd minute, Gabriel Rodriguez closed the deficit to one when he was able to get his left foot on a corner kick and slip it past the Fuego goalkeeper for his first professional goal.

“You just have to be in the right place at the right time,” Rodriguez said of his goal. “That’s the role of a center forward. Just be in the right place.”

Defender Preston Kilwien said the two early goals created issues for the team but they continued to fight hard throughout the entire match.

“When you concede two goals early it’s hard to climb back,” Kilwien said. “We needed to make sure we didn’t give up a third and we did that and you saw at the end of the game how many chances we created. We just need to be more clinical,” he said.

Despite the time of possession advantage, Tormenta only outshot Fuego by a 13-12 margin on the night. 

Cameron said there’s a level of maturity needed to have the team stick to their processes when the team is facing adversity.

“Now’s the time. Everybody knows what they have to do now. Everybody knows how we have to respond when the setting is calm and it’s a hypothetical. But the hypothetical is not there. The reality is here and that is we have a team coming here next Saturday that’s going to use this a blueprint to try to beat us and we have to rectify that,” he said.

Cameron said what is needed to address that is maturity and mature voices inside the locker room.

“This is why some of the older guys get paid a little bit more money because they need to bring to the table sensible, directed conversations about where we need to go and how we have to go about our business,” he said. 

“Everyone is going to learn from this experience. We’re not going to hide from the fact that we weren’t good enough in the first half,” Cameron said. “But we’re not going to overcompensate like we did a few times in that game where we lost our way.”

Tormenta Defender Red Carded

Late in the match, Tormenta defender Jake Dengler was issued a straight red card following a stoppage of play. Following the match, Cameron addressed what happened.

“There was a phrase used that’s quite a common phrase in terms of a derogatory comment about somebody’s soccer ability and it was interpreted by a player as a connotation that went beyond the soccer field. That’s a difficult one,” he said. 

“I can give assurance that it wasn’t a direct racial slur,” Cameron said. “It was interpreted by the player as something that has to do beyond soccer. From our perspective, there was a misinterpretation but what we have to do as a whole group is become hyper-conscious that any slur received from people of a certain gender or of certain ethnicities can be interpreted in different ways. We don’t know people’s lived experiences so it’s a lesson.

“I think, from the information I have on hand, you can never be certain but I’m pretty confident that Jake Denger did not mean it in that connotation. It was a soccer slur. But we have to grow from it and get better and we have to tighten up our language so that no player has the feeling that their player had.”

New Uniforms

Tormenta unveiled their new kits at a season ticket holder event last month, but on Saturday they wore their all black alternate kits without a sponsor on the jersey for the season opener. 

Tormenta President Darin Van Tassell said they’re eager to unveil their new sponsored uniforms and he hopes to be able to do so by the third home game, not including the U.S. Open Cup game.

“We may even have a different one for the Open Cup,” he said. 

Jermaine Jones’ coaching debut

While fans were eager to see Tormenta start their new season, there was also palpable excitement to see Jermaine Jones’ first game as a coach. 

Jones was understandably pleased to get his first win, but tried to keep the focus on his team’s performance in doing what they needed to do.

“I thought the guys did really good. It’s a new group and we had to mis in a couple guys. I’m proud about my team and about the boys and now we get one,” he said.

“When you go into something new, people like to look at how you’re doing, especially as a player going in to coach,” he said. “I have ideas and I try to put them on to the field and give back to my players. Of course I was excited when we started scoring and we talked about wanting to get out like that.”

“We had the penalty and then we had a couple more chances to score. At the end it was a tough game but all together, I’m happy,” he said.