SISAC TOURNAMENT MATCH # 2 – VS BISS Pudong

One more time BISS Pudong. If there is a team that has my utmost respect is this one. They have players that knows the game and loves the game. According to my memory, we faced them six times before. We lost twice (ACAMIS 2011), we tied one (ACAMIS 2012 during the round robin) and we won four times (SISAC Semifinals 2012, ACAMIS Finals 2012 and two matches ACAMIS 2013). Once more we would face them in the semifinals of SISAC tournament.

They lost, if I am not mistaken, around 4 players (graduated) and they are going through a reformulation in their team. We also lost four players but we found great replacements, keeping the team spirit and way of playing this game. Due to the last results we had against them, I was concerned they would come with extra motivation to beat us. Well, I was not wrong but I was prepared.

Once more, our Swedish Black Spider could not be black. She had to to switch her uniform to the gray one because BISS was playing with their black uniform, even though the brackets clearly said they should play with white. Anyway, it was easier to Bella to change her uniform than BISS change the whole team’s gear.

I’ve started the match with Bella, Tehillah, Mikayla, Inês, Suh-Young on the left and Alice on the right with Franziska as striker. Alva was totally recovered but I was not so sure yet about Kyra so I decided to keep her out in the beginning to feel the match first and check how she felt. Well, did not last too long to me to have a problem. With less than two minutes in the match, Alice crashed onto a BISS Pudong player and was not feeling well so it was time to Alva to go in. By that time, BISS Pudong was “enjoying the game”. Their #16 (one of the remaining players from that match from 2011) and their #30 were exchanging passes and had already shot twice at our goal. To counter-balance, right after our Viking Alva pushed the ball forward and took a shot at their goal and the best came right after. With 6 minutes in the match, our quiet Zen Defender Mikayla, deflected a ball accidentally connecting a counter-attack with Franziska. Our German panzer, in the middle of two BISS defenders, fought for the ball and gave an awesome pass to our Portuguese Brain that just had to shoot, on the ground, away from their goalie. 1 x 0 SCIS.

Seemed that our goal shaken their team. We started dominating and not even a minute later Franziska almost had a shot at their goal. My goal was to keep the pressure so they would not have chance to attack but at the same time, asking Suh-Young on the left to stay a little back to cover the hole in the midfield that Inês would leave whenever she went up.

Our German Panzer was driving their defenders crazy. They left two on her constantly. So if Franziska was under pressure, she would quickly pass to Alva and start a play on the right, having Inês on the center helping organizing everything. For 15 minutes we only attacked, without BISS shooting any ball at our goal.  On the 16th minute our Unbreakable Dutch dribbled in our defensive system, brought it up to the midfield, passed to Franziska, that once more dribbled two but passed too strong for Alva that was sprinting to the middle. But if our Viking did not get this chance, on the 18th minute she simply dribbled two BISS defenders and shot but their goalie got it, unfortunately.

On the 22nd minute, a moment of fear. In a quick distraction of our defensive system, on a throw in from the left side, their #16 found the #30 alone. To our advantage she was not able to completely trap the ball and our Zen Defender came as a torpedo and shot this ball out. The problem was that their #30 kicked Mikayla’s leg and both fell on the ground and the referee gave a free kick to BISS and it was fairly close to our box. Their #16 got the shot and… out. Uff! And that was the end of the first half.

The problem of scoring a goal early in the game is that this automatically forces the other team to come chasing us, pressuring as much as possible to score a goal and if this happens, they will have the upper hand of the match while our team will feel trapped. So what I wanted was to the girls be calm, pass more the ball and enjoy the game, stressing BISS with a passing game. I started the second half with Bella, Mikayla and Tehillah defending, Inês center midfield, Kyra on the left, Alice on the right and Hailey as the striker. With two minutes Hailey almost score a “knee shot” on a well rehearsed corner kick taken from Inês, passing to Kyra who passed back to Inês. We are practicing this a lot, I have to say.

We kept pressuring in the attack. Kyra took a long distance shot and Hailey was pressuring non-stop there. BISS had the first shot, from far away and Bella got it with no major problem. Then ANOTHER free kick, very close to our goal box from the right side. This time Hailey, on the wall, saved the day. Hailey was AWESOME this match. Her constant movement at the attack made BISS allocate at least one player always close to her. As s natural athlete, she has the stamina of running non-stop, exhausting their players.

With 5 minutes to end the match, I had Franziska to substitute Hailey as striker and from that moment on, it was just matter of let the clock run and save energy for the final. Of course Franziska was thinking differently. She wanted to score her goal. After all, until that moment she had scored a goal in every match. The problem of SISAC and ACAMIS tournaments is the fact you have many short matches in one day so it’s a dilemma if you rest a player or let her play full matches. I decide to rest and rotate as much as possible the players. Anyway, we managed to beat our former arch-nemesis. It seems that now we are totally able to face BISS Pudong without fearing them. Now it’s about resting and prepare ourselves to our fourth SISAC tournament final in a row! As a matter of a fact this group of girls had gone to every final possible from every tournament that we were involved in the last four years. I have nothing but respect for my Amazon Warriors!

Goals:  Inês
Assists: Franziska
MVP of the match: Hailey

BELLATORUM INVICTUM!