Now Birmingham Shows Suspended Animation, 2-0

Early in December, Coach Jose Freire of Birmingham High announced his retirement in outrage after 10 of his starters received multiple-game suspensions for playing in a Thanksgiving weekend club tournament after participating in the Birmingham tournament the week before.

Freire, who is retiring at the end of the season, has a new view of the situation now that nine of his starters are through serving suspensions, crediting the suspensions for his team’s recent success.

“The suspensions turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” Freire said. “The normal bench players got to take advantage of the suspensions. Those guys got to play and they are doing well. Those guys are helping the team a lot now.”

Freire’s analogy came to form Saturday when Birmingham, still without two starters, knocked off Manual Arts, 2-0, to win the Sylmar tournament.

It was only the second time this season Birmingham has played with nine of the suspended starters. One starter is injured and another is out of the country. The first came in a victory on penalty kicks over University earlier in the day.

“Today was a great day,” said defender Mike Erush of Birmingham, the tournament’s most valuable player. “This is just the beginning.

“This is just practice for us. League is a big thing for us. We want to reach our goal and win the City. We’re not playing our best soccer, but we are improving.”

Birmingham (7-4-1) used quick one-touch soccer against Manual Arts (7-1-3). The Patriots kept possession for roughly 90% of the first half and their aggressive defense allowed Manual Arts in their goalbox only once, while holding the Toilers to three shots.

Birmingham scored on John Ortega’s pass to Jaime Gomez, who slipped a ball to the keeper’s right, for a 1-0 lead a minute into the game.

The Patriots got an insurance goal when Gomez bent a cross over the Manual Arts defense to Erush, who one-touched the ball into the net.

Sylmar defeated Washington, 2-0, in a consolation game when Jose Carcamo assisted two goals by Angel Hernandez.