I am thrilled to keep the tradition of never losing the first match. We had only three practices so I was really concerned that we still did not have a team spirit or team pattern. How wrong could I be? We played most of the match as a solid block, from goalie to striker.

We started with Cassie as the goalie, Kyra and Inês as defenders, Franziska, Louise and Suh-Young as midfielder and Olivia as our striker. The idea was to pressure Suzhou right from the beginning with our Korean Speeder, the Danish Brain and a constant 1-2 between Germany and Sweden. Took a little while but around 5-10 minutes we buycbdproducts a penalty kick when Olivia shot and one of Suzhou’s defenders raised her arms and blocked it. I was in doubt if our Captain (Louise) should take the penalty or Olivia. Considering that was Olivia’s initiative that got the penalty in first place, I decided to call her to shoot. Unfortunately the ball went a little high and hit the top bar. The good thing was that Olivia shook it up and kept playing very well as a striker.

Around 20 minutes into the first half, our captain took the matters into her own hands, with a long distance shot, a near-ground ball gave no change to Suzhou’s goalie, scoring the first goal of the season, after an assistance of Franziska.

With one goal on the scoreboard and our players starting to get tired, I started substituting, bringing fresh lungs specially in the midfield with Victoria, Esmee and Celine, giving chances to all players have a taste of the match. We kept pressuring them but ended the first half 1×0.

We started the second half with Janie as a goalie. Suzhou came back to the second half pressuring us. We spent the first 5 minutes just defending ourselves but then, Hail Gribble! With a perfect pass from Franziska, Hailey had the cold blood to trap the ball, push a little forward and kindly shoot on the right corner of the goal. SCIS 2 x 0. Unfortunately after that play, our captain got injured and it was a great chance to test Olivia distributing the plays. Not long after this change, with a succession of passes and with Franziska assisting for the third time, Hailey scored one more goal. What a surprise to see Hailey as a striker destroying Suzhou’s defense. Originally I was considering her to be a defender but now it’s clear her place is from the middle, forward. Our defense seems very solid with Inês and Kyra, with Katy and Elisa coming to the rescue whenever is necessary and when this is not enough, our goalies are there to save the day. Actually, seems that Elisa wanted to spice up the match so she decided to pass back to Janie, which gave Suzhou a indirect free kick. Still, we were able to save it and keep the result.

Suzhou have a good team and they defeated us three times last year, including the final match of the SISAC tournament so I can say it was a great victory.

Goals: Luise, Hailey (2)
Assists: Franziska (3)
MVP of the match: Hailey