The first 26-goal tournament of the Palm Beach season is under way, and one team has already made a statement. Bob Jornayvaz’s Valiente played their first match of the C.V. Whitney Cup on the Engel & Völkers field at the International Polo Club Palm Beach on the last Sunday of February and beat Coca-Cola 12-3, leading 7-1 at half-time.
A plan built on penalties
Valiente’s line-up of Jornayvaz, Matías Torres Zavaleta, Diego Cavanagh and Adolfo Cambiaso handed all of the penalty shots to Cavanagh, and the numbers explain why. In the Ylvisaker Cup earlier in the season Cambiaso had converted 9 of 19 penalties, while Cavanagh had converted 13 of 19. He opened the scoring with a penalty and went on to convert four of six first-half attempts. Zavaleta added two field goals from three shots in the first half, and Cambiaso scored on his only attempt.
Cambiaso spent most of the game at back, controlling the tempo and sending passes into open space, while Cavanagh worked to block the Coca-Cola defenders who were pressing the ball. Jornayvaz’s own blocking helped free his forwards too.
Coca-Cola’s problem
Coca-Cola, with Julián de Lusarreta, Julio Arellano and nine-goaler Miguel Novillo Astrada, tried to put pressure on Cambiaso by bringing de Lusarreta and Arellano forward. That plan opened up space behind them, and Valiente exploited it. Novillo Astrada was kept quiet, taking just one shot without scoring, and Coca-Cola had only six shots at goal in the first half. Fouls told the same story: 14 against Coca-Cola and 8 against Valiente. De Lusarreta was the only Coca-Cola scorer we can name.
It was a tough afternoon for a team that had lost in overtime to Orchard Hill a week earlier, and it leaves Coca-Cola with work to do in the bracket.
What it means
With Cambiaso, Cavanagh and Zavaleta all in form, Valiente look like the early team to beat in Wellington this year, although Orchard Hill’s Pieres cousins will have something to say about that. We will follow the Whitney Cup through to the final.
Sources: Town-Crier
