Last match of the season. We already champions of the league so why was I so nervous and anxious for that match? We are coming back from the break. We had only one official practice before this match. I was scared our team would be a bit rusty and besides that, if you had me as a coach for years, you know how I always create insane little goals to achieve in the season. I create these goals because it’s a way that we can always keep ourselves motivated. We are athletes, we already achieved a certain success with this football team. So why do we keep trying? What does keep our team always trying hard? We want to be the best always. We want to be able to look back and see that no matter what were the odds, we were always trying our hard to play the beautiful game in away that we will be proud of.

Our last match of the league meant nothing in terms of position. We were already champions since we “won” against BISS Puxi, second place on the west league. That gave me the real chance of trying out a possible team for next year. With that, the only Senior to start the match was Bella. Our defenders were Mikayla and Tehillah, center midfield Kyra, Sinead on the left with Alice on the right and Hailey as a striker. It’s important to say that we never played like this before so it was indeed risky. I will not be here next year so it’s completely up to the future coach to decide the best team but I want the girls to have a least a taste of possible positions. The only one that I am quite sure was mispositioned would be Mikayla. She is an awesome goalie so I guess it will be inevitable to see her inheriting the gloves from Bella next year. Another highlight of this match was the massive support of our parents. It was the first time I saw so many parents coming to support us in an away match. It was awesome. Specially for the fresh oranges for the players during the break. PERFECT!

Let’s get to the match per se. The first half we failed miserably to play our regular jogo bonito. Ball was always in the air and sometimes seemed to be a pinball game with both teams kicking the ball wherever the nose pointed, not passing and distributing the game. Took us almost five minutes to actually start passing the ball Hongqiao style. Kyra passed the ball to the left and our pseudo-Irish Sinead took a good shot but the German goalie defended. The German field is VERY small. It’s almost a perfect square but with a small area so almost every ball reached Bella and the German goalie fairly frequent. Other problem was that almost every punt from Bella ended up in the German goal box which made the match boring to watch and hard to play. We had another good chance only around the eighth minute with Hailey shooting a ball that the German goalie defended. Our Wonder Alice, one minute later,  beautifully dribbled nicely a German player but her shot was too weak and their goalie got it.

After many substitutions, the game became extremely boring. To have an idea, Bella and the German goalie exchanged three balls in a row, without any other player touching it. And we had comical moments when for example Franziska tried to trap the ball and ended up sitting on top of it (23rd minute). With our Happy Swedish (Alva) in the field, we started to have more cadence in your gameplay. Still, we were not shooting at goal.

Nothing was happening at the match until we did something that always drives me insane; it’s what we call in Portuguese ” Let me leave the ball for you to leave it” (deixa que eu deixo) where a player stops expecting the other player to get the ball and at the end none of them got it. Well, Inês and Mikayla did that in the midfield and I had to release a guttural, primal scream to see if the team would wake up. It seemed to work because when everything was pointing out to finish the first half with a 0 x 0 on the scoreboard, our Portuguese Brain founded Franziska in the box but she tripped, lucky for us our Happy Swedish was there. The funny aspect of this was that Alva shot the ball and…. Franziska deflected it with her butt! Not happy with this, Alva took another shot , this time on the extreme right of the goal and scored our first goal of the match! My question now is; should we consider Franziska butt-pass as an assist? Anyway, that seemed to waken up our Amazon Warriors. Right after, Alva once more fought for a ball on the corner and passed to Inês. With a power drive shot on the ground, the goalie deflected and Franziska shot on the crossbar. Our Happy Swedish was able to calm the team and make the ball run on the “grass”, instead of having it flying around non-stop.

Second half I’ve started with Greta defending with Mikayla, so we had a lefty there to help passing specially to the other lefty of the team, Kyra whenever both were in the field. Anyway, the second half started as boring as the first half. At least until the 10th minute of the 2nd half, when Franziska, as a real German Panzer, fought for a ball and passed to Inês, who meticulously shot a ball away from the reach of the goalie. 2 x 0 SCIS.

Then at the 27th minute the unthinkable happened. The clouds darkened, the time moved slower, the voice ran way from my throat. Penalty for the German school. A throw in from our left side into our goal box caused havoc and Tehillah and Suh-Young, trying to deflect the ball, ended up hitting Suh-Young’s left arm. We had a penalty against us if I am not mistaken against SAS Puxi but their player shot out. We had in our favor our amazing Swedish Black Spider but the gods of football decided that our Amazon Warriors could not have it all. Goal from German school. 2 x 1. It was the first goal we conceded in the whole season, counting friendlies and official matches. This is way more than the dream season of 2013 where we conceded 8 goals until SISAC tournament. After that goal, you could see our girls all with head down and Bella looking at me as saying: “I am sorry, I couldn’t had done anything”. Suh-Young was the portrait of frustration. What we cannot forget is that we are Amazon Warriors. We are natural fighters. We may take a blow but we will stand up and fight back.

Five minutes after the “unmentionable-moment”, our German Panzer, right after substituting Hailey, got a precious pass from our Portuguese Brain. You should know by now, if you let our German Panzer traps the ball on her right foot, she kills. No chance for their goalie. 3 x 1 SCIS. 100% Franziska, scoring in every single match (official and friendly) in the league. First athlete to achieve this incredible mark.

We still had time to one more amazing play. Phoebe, almost like proving to me that she still the Disciplined Midfielder from last year, passed a ball to Franziska that I should use in every single football lecture about passing. It was a sugary ball that Franziska could not do anything else but to score another goal. If I were Franziska, I would give 70% of this goal to Phoebe. What a pass! 4 x 1.

League is already over. It’s already in the past. Now we have 10 more matches to go in two incredibly tough competitions. We will be the target. We will be the team to be defeated. After four years, we had built a reputation. Our jersey is feared. Our jersey is respected. Our 14 Amazon Warriors bear it with pride and must be ready for every match, every battle.

Bella pointed out that lately I am shouting less and less from the sidelines and I was pondering why this is happening. I came to the conclusion that there are two basic reasons for that. One is that the team is more and more playing the way I want so I don’t actually need to shout every single play. the other, more philosophical one is the fact that more and more the end of a cycle is a reality for me. Part of me wants to simply enjoy seeing my Amazon Warriors playing and not just shouting instructions. I want to see the great evolution from the players that are with me for years. I want to enjoy the quality of the freshmen that just joined the team. It IS a team. We PLAY as team and we are WINNING as a team. 10 more matches. That’s all I ask. Let’s give it all in those 10 more challenges.

Goals:  Alva, Inês, Franziska (2)
Assists:  Inês, Franziska
MVP of the match: Alva

[UPDATE] I cannot forget to comment on the fact of our illustrious guest, the Defensive Rock Katy Ni, helping with the filming and bringing happiness to the team. It’s awesome to have our former stars showing up. We had Louise some weeks ago, now Katy and soon Marta.The fact we have our former athletes coming back to play with us fills my heart with joy because shows that they love the game and they love the team. Once an Amazon Warrior, always an Amazon Warrior!

BELLATORUM INVICTUM!

Going to Suzhou it’s always a pain in the neck, considering the almost two hours trip back and forth. It would be very frustrating to go there and come back with a defeat. Besides that, this match was kind of important to us considering that if we won, we would be champions of the West League two years in a row even with one match left in the season.

The day started with the bad news that Wonder Alice was sick so she would not be at school today. Five minutes before catching the bus, Greta tells me that she had to be at the strings’ concert. On top of that, Mr. Reimer told me that there was a problem with the busses. I just told him that we cannot lose a match because of that but he was on it and managed to solve the situation brilliantly. We had a very tiny bus but with a great driver. At least he knew how to arrive there and we arrived fairly early (3:30PM).

We started with Bella, Mikayla and Tehillah, Suh-Young (she was great on the practice the day before), Inês, Kyra and Franziska as striker. From Suzhou, the whole team was new and during the warm up, I could notice that their goalie was fairly good. Besides that, they had two tall and strong players, stronger than the French players we faced first match. Beautiful weather to play ball with a nice sun. I even said during my prematch speech that the football Gods were blessing our match with the beautiful weather so would be a great day to be champions.

But we are focused and we want to win. Unfortunately, we were so focused that we forgot to film the first five minutes of the match. Without our camerawoman Lily Briggs, we are nothing. Don’t fool yourselves, in those five minutes we missed a goal! Inês assisted our German Panzer and boom! 1 x 0 SCIS Hongqiao. What made me very happy on this goal was not only Franziska keeping her amazing mark of scoring a goal every match but Inês happiness to assist Franziska. She ran toward us saying “My assist! My assist!” that’s what every coach dreams about; a team that players are worried about doing well their jobs, not only scoring goals.

With 13 minutes, started down pouring. To coach under a weather like that, it’s … wet. I gave my jacket to protect the camera and I was soaking wet.

The kept the full control of the match, pushing forward. Their field is very unique. There is no small box and the goal box is huge. It’s short but very wide and with a very big and dangerous hole on one of the sides. With 22 minutes. Franziska fought for a ball on the right side of attack, passed to Inês who shot a ball full of curve and fooled the goalie. 2 x 0. Inês and Franziska were unstoppable this match! I guess it’s the fact IB Mock Exams were over, they were much lighter to play.

With 5 minutes to end the first half, Hailey (as a striker) shot a ball and the goalie deflected it but Inês was there and she got one of her crazy shots that the ball does a parabola out of the reach of the goalie. It’s her trademark considered she scored a goal like that 4 years ago during ACAMIS finals. So, 3 x 0 Hongqiao and end of the first half. We had one of our hands on the trophy already and all the Amazon Warriors had time on the pitch, showing how strong this team is.

The second half, when you could expect us to slow down and hold the score, Franziska was thinking differently. She kept pressuring and with 3 minutes already shot two or three balls at the goal. There were moments we were with four attackers against three. I was testing Phoebe as the right wing (her position last year) and Hailey as the left with Franziska as striker. While Phoebe was very comfortable on the right, Hailey was suffering to play on the left (it was her first time). Still she manage to get a volley shot that was super cool. But cool was the next goal. With 50 minutes into the match, Hailey deflected a ball, that ended up with Franziska on the center midfield. She passed to Inês and started sprinting to the right of the field. Our Portuguese brain, with one surgically precise pass, assisted Franziska face-to-face with the goalie. Our German Panzer instead of shooting a cannonball, softly touched out of reach, on the ground by the right side of the goalie. 4 x 0 SCIS. This dynamic duo was on fire! It’s the goal of the match. Exactly what we practiced the day before. I’ve watched this goal already 5 times here while writing this post. So proud!

After that, it was time to experiment many things, one of them was Mikayla as midfield and defending Emma and Tehillah. Poor Mikayla was completely lost. I am extremely amazed how solid Mikayla is as the first defender. She antecipates perfectly and is working very well with Tehillah.

If you think that the match was over, well, you forgot to tell our German Panzer. On the last minute, Tehillah deflect the ball from our own goalie box and Franziska got the ball alone on the center midfield. Alone, in the middle of three defenders, she shot, the ball ricocheted from one of them and … GOAL! Hat trick to our German Panzer, the leader of our blitzkrieg on Suzhou’s defensive system. 5 x 0 and end of the match.

So my Amazon Warriors, the Gods wanted you to have 10 days to celebrate our first title of the season. We still have two to conquer and we will have to fight even harder. This season we are even better than the last one, if that’s possible. Congratulations to us all! As for me, I decided to celebrate with a nice Haiku banquet, with enough rolls to feed me for a week!

BELLATORUM INVICTUM! Literally.

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

It was a very special match for me. It was the last time ever some of us were playing at home, on our own turf. After a gorgeous day yesterday when we played with temperatures of 22 degrees, today it was rainy and cold, with temperatures of 11 degrees. In my opinion, even heaven was sad to see us departure from our home after four years dedicated to this pitch. Of course, our match could not start without a drama. Well, our German Panzer simply twisted her ankle while running inside the building to pick up something in her locker. Her last match at home, with her parents there to watch and everything. I could see the frustration in her eyes. She said she wanted to play and I asked how was her ankle. She said it was hurting but not much so she was icing to see if she could play at all or not.

I’ve started with all my Seniors (Franziska was out) so it was Bella, Mikayla and Tehillah defending, Suh-Young on the right , inês center and Alva on the left with Hailey as striker. I was also insecure how Kyra’s leg was since she had been complaining for a while about it whenever she shoots.

We never played against SAS Puxi before. They have a large field so normally they play 11 aside instead of 7 aside. This year they decided to have a team playing 7 aside which is actually their JV team from the 11 aside. With 1 minute and a half, Alva get accidentally kicked on her ankle and I could see that it hurt a lot! She ALMOST even cursed. To check how she was, I’ve subbed Alva by Kyra with 3 minutes. Luckily was nothing serious and Alva would go back to the game right after. Well, right after Kyra got in, first ball she traps, she passes to Hailey and 1 x 0. I did not even saw the goal because I was talking to Alva! So fast! Well, not long after, at 8 minutes, a SAS defender deflected badly a ball, our Portuguese Brain calmly trapped the ball, pushed to her right foot and shot a ground ball, with no chance for the goalie. 2 x 0 SCIS.

Since they did not attack us, we kept pressuring until on a side throw from Inês, she found Hailey in the box. Hailey quickly shot and their goalie kind of helped us by letting the ball pass. 3 x 0 SCIS. After her goal and with Franziska guaranteeing me that she was 100% ok to play, it was time to give it a shot to our German Panzer. And with our German Panzer, we did a real blitzkrieg on their goalie, with Franziska shooting twice, Inês twice all at the same play. The ball almost did not leave their box. Then their goalie started to show how brave she was. We shot more 10 balls towards her and she deflected all. Ok, there was not a single “wow” shot but still, she saved. Nothing more relevant happened on the first half besides we pressuring with Sinead from the left, Alice from the right and Hailey as striker but unfortunately the ball did not go in. During the break I addressed that with the girls, asking them to pass more, slow down the game because they were not pressuring at all. They did not have a single player in our field. We kept 90% the time the ball on their defensive side of the field.

If you thought we had good opportunities during the first half, you must watch the video for the second half. It was INSANE. It started at 2 minutes of the second half when Franziska prepared a ball inside the small area/box, Suh-Young shot, the goalie miraculously defended and Kyra shot on the pole, being 3 steps from the goal line. Unbelievable! Right after that one of the most hilarious moment of the match; the ball comes slowly to Inês. She prepares herself so much to shoot that her support foot slides back and she almost falls on top of the ball. Sorry Inês but it was a bit funny. 🙂 

Still, the match was totally unbalanced. To have an idea, their goalie had 5 consecutive goal kicks. She would try one, we get the ball and shoot at the goal. Try again, one more shot from our team. SAS was not even touching the ball. Then after so much pressure, we finally scored again. Kyra passed to Suh-Young,  then she passed the ball back to Kyra on the left. Our Glass head found a shot between the pole and the goalie’s foot. 4 x 0 SCIS.

Then our quest to help Franziska begun. Kyra served an incredible ball to Franziska, leaving our German Panzer face to face with the goalie. I sincerely don’t know how the goalie saved that missile shot by Franziska. The problem was that our German Panzer, Franny Skywalker, was starting to get impatient with herself. She had another amazing chance where she fought for a ball that was almost out of bounds but she recovered, sprinted towards the goal, shot a powerful ball but the goalie defended. I decided to take her our for a few minutes so she could cool off and also to check her injured ankle. We were already 4 x 0 so no need to risk her there. Hailey went back in and kept the same intense pressure on SAS.

5 minutes to end the match, I decided to have all my Seniors in the field so Suh-Young and Franziska went back in and it paid off. Inês shot a high ball to the goalie, she did not hold and Franziska, as a perfect striker, was there to check it out and just gently pushed inside the goal. It was a Senior goal! 5 x 0 Franziska 100% (scoring in every single match of the season). After that, we kept pressuring but nothing really happened. Just some numbers of the matches:
Times Bella literally touched the ball: 7 times
SAS shots at our goal: 0
SCIS shots at SAS goal: 58 shots

If German school beats today BISS, they can be the only school that could take the title from us. For now, we are the only undefeated team in the league with two more matches to go. I can start to dream with the twice-champion of the SISAC League. It was a great way to say goodbye to our crowd. Thank you so much for all the support!

Goals: , Kyra, Inês, Hailey (2), Franziska,
Assists: Suh-Young, Inês, Kyra
MVP of the match: Hailey

What an exhausting day. Actually it started yesterday where I had to move all the tables of my class to prepare for the seminar of Mr. Hammond Peek, the Oscar winner Sound engineer from the trilogy Lord of the Rings. Then today, all day long I had the honour to chaperone him and his Oscar around campus so I had to literally run to to the field so my team could start warming up.

I am entering a very emotional phase with my team. It’s the “last” phases. Being my last season coaching those incredible girls, every little details and moment matters to me. Today was the last time I saw my team playing with the red uniform at home (SAS also wears red so we will play in white next week). Elaine took a picture of the team not only as a memory for me but also to send to ACAMIS.

For the first time in this season I had absolutely all the players available but still not all 100% . Franziska recovered from her ankle/knee injury and wanted to play. Kyra is healed from her 1002nd concussion but was having a hard time shooting with her left leg (something on her hamstring) and this would be Bella’s first official match after being a week off school to recover. The starting lineup was: Bella, Mikayla and Tehillah defending. Inês center, Alice right and Alva left with Hailey as striker.

YCIS, with a brand new uniform, was a completely different team. As a matter of a fact, I did not recognise any of their players. Not even their uniform is the same! They have a much younger and lighter team than last year. Before our match, they beat SSIS and tied with Suzhou so I was worried that they would come full pressure to try to steal points from us in the league. when I’ve noticed they only had two players on the bench, I did not expect them to actually to be super physical in the match.

It was a gorgeous day to play the beautiful game. 15 degrees, sunny and with the pollution at Shanghai levels of 170AQI. We started the same way we always did, pressuring. Hailey seemed that she did not want to waste the opportunity of starting as a striker. With four minutes she trapped a ball thrown in by Inês, spun it and shot on the right pole. Almost our first goal.It was ok because two minutes later, after a nice pass from Alva, Hail Gribble! Scored our first goal. 1 x 0

If you think this would be an easy match like against SSIS, don’t fool yourself. Two minutes later, our defensive system started to show a sequence of basic mistakes. First was an extremely bad positioning of Alice, Tehillah and Mikayla which ended up with YCIS # 3 face to face with Bella. Our Swedish black spider jumped and saved the day. Don’t worry, you will read more about her throughout this post.

Anyway, after that shot from YCIS, back to our normal game. Suh-Young (not subbing Alice) pressuring from the right and Alva from the left.  One of the funniest moments of the match was when Mikayla antecipated their striker, trapped the ball, was ready to shoot at YCIS goal and then….. she kicked her own left foot! The ball barely moved a cm.  I guess a little dizzy of this unique moment, Mikayla charged like a raging bull towards YCIS #3, who dribbled her very easy. Luckily Kyra was covering Mikayla but still, their #3 fought for the ball and was able to cross to another YCIS player free in the box. Luckily, she shot way out of bounds.

Kyra was very participative on the left wing. She exchanged some passes with Hailey and with a nice shot concluding it but unfortunately hit the right post. Since the ball was not out, we continued to pressure until a defender from YCIS shot it towards midfield. I guess Mikayla used all her frustration and shot an incredible ball from that spot. It was so strong and unpredictable that the goalie tried to grab but it died in the net. Goalies must be always be paying attention. SCIS 2 x 0. Way to go, Mikayla! Every time you have a open shot, take it. I am sure you will score more throughout this season.

After that, we slowed down and YCIS grew their gameplay. Phoebe and Tehillah were having a hard time to stop their #3 and #5. Once more #5 was alone in front of Bella, who jumped like a cat on her feet, avoiding the worst but not completely. It was a horror movie. Phoebe deflected softly to the edge of the box, an YCIS player got the ball, passed by Inês and once more #5 was ready to shoot but Tehillah tripped her. Penalty kick to YCIS. Unbelievable. We were doing basic mistakes, like a beginner’s team. We are the current champions of the league. We need to be more focused during the match. Then the star of the match shone once more. Our Swedish Black Spider, very calmly went to the center of the goal, relaxed and smiling, putting all the pressure on the penalty kick taker. Guess what? She shot out! Wait, do you think that’s was all that Bella did? There is more. We, once more were being kind and giving lots of space to YCIS and then with two players totally free in front of her, Bella dove on the feet of #3 which took a very powerful shot. Now our Swedish Black Spider has a tummy tattoo of a football. One more time, after this, again, YCIS alone in front of her and there was Bella to guarantee that SCIS does not concede any goal.

Second half we organised better our defensive system so YCIS did not offer that much of danger to Bella anymore and then their goalie started to shine. We shot so many times to their goal that was incredible. Until finally, after trying so much, Inês assisted Franziska with a medium high shot was able to score her goal in this match. Our German Panzer for now scored in every single match. Way to go, Franziska! 3 x 0 SCIS.

We still have time to score one more goal. Two minutes to end the match, Franziska passes to Hailey that shoots a high ball, surprising the goalie.

It was our worst match but history records only the score to I should be happy with 4 x 0. Well, I’m not. We will work A LOT on that defensive system. If we get a team that can pass, we are in big trouble.

Three matches to go and next week will be our last match at home. Let’s hope we play way better than what we did today.

Goals: Hailey (2), Franziska, Mikayla
Assists: Franziska, Inês, Alva
MVP of the match: Bella

Today my team played by music. It was a marvellous presentation. Ok, their team still in formation (mostly 8th and 9th graders) but I did not want to tell their coach that our goalie is a 9th grader and in certain moments of the match the majority of our team on the field were 9 and 10 graders.

Anyway, let’s talk about the match. Second trip (first was Dragons Cup), second time the bus driver gets lost. Please. GPS! Phoebe saved us this time. If I ever lose a match because were arrived late somewhere, I will die. The start lineup today:. Mikayla as goalie then defending Greta and Tehillah. My midfield were the old people:  Kyra on the left, Inês center, Suh-Young right and Franziska as a striker. We had to play with bibs because they were also with the red jersey. Their coach brought something up interesting; in the rules says that the home team plays with the bright colours. Her uniform is red or blue and for her, the red is the brightest color. Our uniforms are white and red so whenever playing away, we use the red one. Anyway, since Emma and Greta hadn’t got their customised jersey, it was ok to wear the bibs.

Be ready to read a loooooooooong post. The score was kind of…elastic. It took a little while to start but with 7 minutes and a half, Kyra crossed a ball to Franziska in the box, she kind of trapped/passed the ball to Suh-Young and our Killer Asian struck a ground shot towards the left side of the goal. 1 x 0.

SSIS was ready to defend but at the same time they gave us a lot of space, which is lethal to a team who likes to pass the ball so much. Their striker was not even in our half of the field. I have to say though we were playing in a 11 aside field, which helps A LOT our way of playing. On the minute 13:16 Franziska cross to Kyra on the left and our Glass Head had all the time in the world to trap, prepare her lethal left foot and… goal! 2 x 0.

17th minute, Franziska fights for a ball on the left, dribbles one midfielder and shoots a torpedo but the goalie deflects it. Hailey, in the box, tries to shoot but a defender once more gets in the way. The ball ends up on the right foot of our Inês Ronaldo; with a ground shot, scores our third go. 3 x 0.

Right after that goal, SSIS scared us with their center midfield (#14). She dribbled Hailey, Greta, fought for the ball and won against Tehillah and ended up face to face with Mikayla but… shot out of bounds. Lucky us. Anyway, 1 minute later, we scored one more goal. Franziska, from the right, gave a beautiful pass to inês in the middle and our Portuguese did not waste the chance, a high shot on the upper left corner. 4 x 0.

On the 23rd minute, SSIS started to surround our goal box but we, if you allow me to use a basketball term, “boxed them out” with Phoebe, Emma and Alva. They did not have a chance of shooting at our goal. With a fast counter-attack, we pushed them back into their defensive system and they did not leave until the end of the first half.

27th minute a beautiful play between Hailey and Inês. After a throw in by Inês, Hailey back heeled to Inês that shoots a high ball that hits the connection between the right pole and the cross bar. Alva was there but she did not had the chance to trap or push the ball inside. It was soooo close! But don’t get sad. One minute later, Inês with a pass finds Hailey inside the box. Our happy American spins and shoots. 5 x 0 on the score. After that the referee asked us to slow down. I knew when he said that, he would shorten the match and that’s exactly what happened, first half ended with 30 minutes.

If the first half was easy for us, the second half became a matter of trying to help everybody to score a goal. With less than a minute, Alva had to shoot twice to score her first goal in the season. Congrats, super happy Alva! 6 x 0.

But our happy Swedish was impossible today. She got a ball from the left, passed to Franziska in the middle. Our delicate German Panzer passed a sugared pass to Inês, that just waited Alva to sprint from the left and voilá! Alva’s second goal and 7 x 0 for us. Ibrahimović would not had done better.

Our 8th goal belongs to our striker. Kyra fought and stole a ball in our defensive left side, pushed forward and passed to Franziska in the middle. They left our German Panzer alone to take her time to trap, spin and rotate. This is lethal. Powerful shot on the right side of the goalie.

After that I started to test players in different positions. I placed Greta as left wing, Hailey as Striker, Alva as right wing. Greta almost scored on a rebound of the goalie after a shot from Alva. Don’t feel sad. 10 minutes into the second half, another Barcelona-like tiki-taka passing. Inês passes to Hailey while Alva is sprinting towards the box. Happy Gribble passes to Happy Alva and she makes Hongqiao happy. Alva’s hat trick and SCIS 9 x 0.

After the goal, Alva came off to give the right wing to Alice and teach me some Swedish command words to help giving instructions to Alice (snabbare, skjut) but my very unique pronunciation did not help at all. Anyway, besides Alice on the right, Tehillah was striker and Kyra went back to her 9th grade position; left defender. Did not take too long to Inês to find Tehillah alone in the small box. The first goal of the season of our Unbreakable Dutch! 10 x 0. SSIS was not even trying anymore. I asked the team to pass more and more.

Then finally at the 24th minute of the second half our Wonder Alice scores her first goal in the season. Franziska passes a high ball to the edge of the box, Alice fights for it and ends up alone, face-to-face with the goalie and without any mercy, shoots. 11 x 0 for us.

We had the incredible number of 36 shots at goal. More incredible than this was after SSIS put the ball in the middle, Tehillah simply stole it, dribbled 4 players from SSIS, dribbled the even the referee and scored a goal that Snjeider and van Persie would be extremely proud! Wow!

Seems that Alice envied Tehillah and decided to do something similar. Inês found our Wonder Alice alone in the middle. She trapped the ball, dribble one, two SSIS players, nobody approached so she pushed forward, when in front of the goalie, just shot with her left foot and scored her second goal. Yes, 13 x 0 . SSIS team gave up, they were not even running anymore while our team never stops. I’ve asked them to pass more, to slow the game, but without the other team pressuring us, with two or three touches we were in their goal box. I subbed Alice and put Emma as a striker to see if she would score her goal but the referee ended the match with 7 minutes to end the second half.

Some people may ask; “Why do you keep pushing forward against a team that it’s clearly weaker than you?” My reason is simple. I think it’s a lack of respect if we start just passing or “having fun” in the field. We treat every team the same. We respect all of them the same way and we will play our best all the time. What I do is whenever we have a solid advantage on the score, I test players in different positions like today with Alice and Tehillah as striker and Greta as left wing. What we did not have chance was to test our defensive system. Mikayla touched the ball precisely 4 times and Phoebe, Greta, Emma and Tehillah had minimum work back there. The highlight of the match were the amazing passes from Inês. Incredible! Like Oscar from Brazil and Iniesta from Spain/Barcelona. Passing like that, our strikers will score a truckload of goals.

Goals: Suh-Young, Kyra, Inês (2), Hailey, Alva (3), Franziska, Tehillah (2), Alice (2)
Assists: Franziska (4), Inês (4), Kyra
MVP of the match: Inês

Oh my! Finally! No rain, not that cold (11 degrees) so a good day to play ball, right? Well, not really. First I had the wrong time of the match. I was sure it would be 4:15-4:30 but it was scheduled for 4pm. Second, the tents and chairs were not setup like normally we would have in a home game. With that, warm up was not exactly like I wanted it to be. Still, we were pumped up to perform well to our crowd. Our starting lineup was: Mikayla as goalie, Greta on the left, Tehillah on the right defending. Inês center midfield, alva on the right and Alva on the left with Franziska as striker. Bella is recovering and doing some health tests and Phoebe is away until tomorrow.

The French team it’s taller and physically stronger than ours. They have one or two players with certain skills but the rest of the team relies upon the old trick of “let’s get into their heads and destabilise their team” tactic. We have players are extremely light, like Wonder Alice and even Inês in that case. The first 5 minutes nothing really relevant happened with the exception of a Chinese lady jaywalking in the middle of the field. Can you believe in that?  At 7:30 minutes we finally had a shot at their goal. Alice had a throw in and Alva trapped with her back to their goal, spin to her left and shoot but the ball hits the pole and goes out. Very good chance.

We dominated the match but without being effective. The ball came to our box for the first time at 11 minutes and Mikayla had zero trouble to get it. As a matter of a fact, the French team did not shoot a single ball at Mikayla. Excusing some minor mistakes, we had a solid defensive system with Greta, Tehillah, Emma and Sinead helping there. As a matter of a fact, I need to praise Tehillah here. By the 15th minute she already nulled two or three possible dangerous attacks from them but wait, there are more to come on this Dutch girl.

At around the 18th minute we had a great chance. Inês shot a long ball and the French defender was there protecting the ball to go out and Franziska, our German Panzer fought for it, using her shoulders but she shot with her left foot so the ball was out. Great chance and presence or Franziska. 19th minute, another WOW moment; Inês shoots and arched ball that goes over the goalie but hits the crossbar but does not get in. VERY CLOSE! Wow!

Two relevant moments around the 25th minute. First was Suh-Young hitting the ball with a Ninja kick and hitting Louise’s coffee cup and spilling it all over her hair and the French coach saying that the match it’s supposed to be two halves of 25 minutes. Every year is the same. They NEVER abide by the rules. The first item of the SISAC rule is clear: “Each half will be two 35 minutes halves with a 5 minute interval for half time. The game length will be subject to ‘stoppage time’ (accounts for injuries, ball-outs, substitutions).” You can check the whole set of rules here.

One thing that I’ve noticed a couple of time was that the French girls were fast, even with the ball. There were moments that they were leaving their defensive field counterattacking and we were not able to catch them up, even with them controlling the ball. Alice had a hard time keeping it up with their number 4 and their number 17 was driving Inês crazy. Greta and Tehillah were doing a good job covering those counterattacking. One of those French attacks, their #1 (the most skilful one from their team) dribbled Suh-Young and Tehillah and passed to the middle, targeting their number 17 that was in our box, ready to strike. Kyra, that came in subbing Alice saved us by taking the ball out. Actually Kyra had a good chance to strike in a ball that was bouncing freely in the French box but she did not hit it perfectly so the ball was out of bounds.

The second half I had the same team that finished the first half and seemed to work at first. Kyra had three solid shots from the left but their goalie decided to work so it was hard to score. At the same time we applied more pressure at their goalkeeper, we started doing some basic positioning mistakes defending. For two or three times a French striker was alone close to our box. Luckily either she could trap the ball or Tehillah recovered and cut the pass.

At the 47th minute another long shot from our Portuguese brain from far. The ball hit the crossbar AGAIN! That was the third time. I started to get anxious and scared that this would be the first match since 2012 that would end in a tie in a league match.

Then a player started to shine. Our Unbreakable Dutch! Tehillah was hit on the stomach, fell on her face after being tripped, fell backwards and always stoop up with a smile on her face and ready to protect Mikayla. That’s the spirit, girl!

Finally all our pressure paid off. On a goal kick for the French team at the 54th minute, Hailey passed to Inês, who passed back Hailey on the right wing. She found Franziska in the box and with a  simply flick of her foot was able to finally break the French wall. 1 x 0 SCIS. Right after this, Franny Skywalker with her nebula cleats got a shot from the left side of the field which the French goalie saved with the tip of her fingers.

The most incredible chance came at around the 58th minute. Free kick to our team and Inês “Ronaldo” shoots to the box. A French defender head it backwards and falls on Alva’s foot. She took one second too long and when she shot the goalie saved literally on the line! WOW!

The most dangerous attack from the French team came right after. Tehillah lost the “time”of the ball and then we had three French players against Greta and… Great Greta saved! Way to go girl! Unfortunately right after that, she felt some pain on her ankle, the one she broke during the basketball season and I had to pull her out for the rest of the match. Emma came back and unfortunately had to listen to all kinds of curses said in French by the players. I am proud of my team that does not need to curse. I am 100% against it ALWAYS. There is no excuse for it, in any situation.

Nothing relevant happened until the end of the match. I did some experimentation with Inês as a striker while Franziska was the center midfield and I had also Sinead defending to take advantage of her good pass and her speed. One thing that I observed was the French tactics, specially their #17 if I am not mistaken. She was “bitting” Inês ankles constantly, like hitting with the tip of her cleats every time, just to annoy Inês. We have to forget about it and play our game. We also committed too many fouls (seven in total) because we were getting annoyed by their disruptive way of playing so we were pushing them away constantly.

I am sad because we will not have a practice before the next match, against SSIS away. We need to improve shooting desperately. SSIS have a very uneven field which makes trapping the ball even harder and I am very concerned about injuries there. Last year we lost Kyra and Phoebe there. Let’s hope all goes ok this time.

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

Yes. Again. Yes. Mad. Yes. Third time.

The reason now was the fact their coach and some players were sick. They forfeited the match so we won, 2 x 0. It’s the third match in the row cancelled. It’s unprecedented at least for SCIS HQ. Trust me, I am not happy at all with this since we all actually want to play!

This Saturday we will have the longest Saturday ever. Being at school at 5:30AM, drive for 3 hours to play two matches back to back starting at 12:20PM. All for the sake of Dragons Cup. Anyway, it will be a good practice for us. At least WE WILL PLAY. FINALLY! (better not say that out loud, I could jinx it).

The time to say goodbye to our own pitch has come. This was the last match that this incredible team had played together at home. That was one of the reasons we also played with our red uniforms with our names on it, to celebrate this occasion. I thought a lot, knowing that SSIS is at the bottom of the table, if I should start with our strongest team or take advantage of our weak adversary and play with an alternative team, testing players in different positions. I decided for the first for one basic reason: it was the last time Marta, Katy and the captain Louise would play at home and specially to Louise I thought would be a very emotional moment. She had been with this team for three years and she saw the amazing evolution of the girls throughout this time. I wanted the give them the chance to shine for the last time here.

Everything went according to plan. Beautiful day, a large crowd cheering for us and, above all, us dominating the match. Be ready to have patience, 15 goals to address and some other highlights. If there is a match I can say the girls played the Jogo Bonito (Beautiful Game) this was the one. Everybody was near flawless! It was a perfect match to watch and we had a great audience watching. I am sure they left the match satisfied with what they saw.

We started the match in our regular speed, which is full throttle. With 13 seconds, Marta had already shot at goal after a nice pass from Kyra, who received a nice pass from Inês. That was what I most asked the girls; to pass constantly, non-stop. That was the match. Passing constantly and pressuring them non-stop. At 3 minutes, Louise got a corner kick and one of SSIS defender pushed the ball inside, 1 x 0 for us. At 7 minutes, Marta dribbled two and found Kyra all by herself on the second pole, ready to push that ball into the net; 2 x 0 SCIS. Two minutes later, it was the turn of our German Panzer to push the ball through the right and shoot at goal. Their goalie defended and Marta was there to push the ball inside; 3 x 0. I guess this scared SSIS and their goalie, under pressure, shot a goal kick at the worst place; on Marta’s feet, big mistake and 4 x 0. 15th minute, Inês, with her powerful side-throw found Marta in the box, the Lethal Weapon just let the ball bounce over her head to get on the other side and score our 5th goal, in 15 minutes.

At the 17th minute a special occasion! Franziska scored her first goal in the season! I was so happy to see my German Panzer back full force! She got a great assist from Inês and anticipated the goalie pushed to the net. 6 x 0. One minute later, was the first time Bella touched the ball and right after, Hailey got the ball from the right, pushed forward and passed to Franziska. She was not able to trap the ball but a SSIS defender paniked and pushed the ball inside their own goal; 7 x 0.

There is no questions that our corner kicks and side throws are powerful weapons; Katy got a side-throw what found Marta on the right side of the field. She calmly waited the ball bounce a couple of time and “pluft” (Inês style of describing things with sounds), pushed it inside the goal. 8 x 0 with 20 minutes in the clock. One minute later, Hailey tries a simple shot at the goal and violá; 9 x 0. After that, our team kind of slowed down, of course. Even our lost chances were beautiful. Inês shot a high ball from the midfield line and it fell centimeters of the crossbar. Would be an historical goal. At the 32th minute, our “Irish” Speedy found MartaMessi all alone and with a gorgeous pass served Marta’s fourth goal in the match, 10 x 0. Wait, there is more in the first half. After assisting, was now Sinead’s turn to score, thanks to a great assist from Louise that found Sinead on the right post waiting for the ball and with a ninja kick, pushed it inside the net. End of first half, 11 x 0.

I decided to start preparing the team for the next year so I kept Marta, Louise and Katy out of the beginning of second half. I also had Maddi as a goalie for the first time in the season. The formation was: Maddi, Kyra and Greta (two lefties defending!), Inês center midfield, Phoebe right and Suh-Young left. With three minutes I decided to let Bella play a bit as a defender, also her first time in the league. It’s great to see that Bella can be also a GREAT defender! She is a great leader, versatile and always happy. It’s an amazing asset to the team and everybody loves Bella!

We kept pressuring and Phoebe was playing amazingly well! She pushed from the right twice and dribbled the defenders but the SSIS goalie decided to make the best saves exactly when Phoebe was shooting. At 42 minutes into the match, Suh-Young threw the ball towards the goal, the Goalie touched it but did not hold and the ball went inside, 12 x 0 SCIS.

After this, we kept the pressure but did not convert our shots in goal. One of the SSIS player had a leg cramp and stayed laying down on the field for 3 to 4 minutes, slowing down the match. Maddi touched the ball on the 49th minute only and showed that she also have a powerful punt!

On the 60th minute, our Gymnast Defender shot a ball in the direction of their goal all the way from the midfield line and found Hail Gribble! With her Combative Smile, she greeted the goalie with a header into the net. 13 x 0.

With 10 minutes left, it was time to bring back the players that are leaving us this year so we had Katy, Marta and our Captain Louise back into the match. On the second time our Gentle Giant touched the ball, she connected from the goal directly to Marta, who between two defenders was able to push this ball inside the net. 14 x 0. Incredible assist from Maddi, her first in the season. We still had time to one more goal, thanks to the Versatile Portuguese with her “chica chica boom” style. She trapped the ball at midfield, dribble one, pushed forward and found our German Panzer in front of the goalie, who had the only trouble to push the ball inside the net. Done! 15 x 0, our highest score ever!

I cannot finish this post without addressing a masterpiece. At the last minute of the match, there was a moment of pure magic. Time probably even slowed down so we could appreciate what was happening. On a side throw to SSIS, close to our goal, Kyra deflected a ball, Katy got it inside our own goal box, pushed forward and passed to Marta at the center circle. Marta passed to her left side (she was facing our own goal) to Inês who with a magistral on the ground pass gave back to Marta, now already in SSIS defensive side, who also with a single touch passed to Franziska on the right, who also with a single touch passed back to Marta, now face to face with the goalie and then Marta…. SHOT ALL THE WAY BACK TO BARCELONA! My Goodness! Marta! How could you miss this goal!? Anyway, you have a little credit so now we are all even, ok? 😉 It was a gorgeous play that I already re-watched the video at least 8 times.

Now it’s time for the famous Pessôa’s tales before a tournament. 🙂

The league was flawless. We did way beyond anyone would expect. It was the first time that any player (and me!) in this team ever won the league. Two years ago we were the 4th!  Now we are the unquestionable first. All this does not mean anything tomorrow, during SISAC. If we lose a match, we are out. Matches will be shorter and now our team is the one to be beaten. Everybody will want to be the first one to defeat us in an official match.

I remember when I was a little boy back in Brazil, watching the world cup in the 80s. In Brazil, World Cup is almost a religious event. We decorate streets, buildings, get together to watch the matches and everything you can imagine that fanatics would do. I remember that someone would bring a TV to the building playground so everybody would watch the match together. Brazil had a dream team in the 80s with Zico (the best player I ever saw in action) Falcão, Sócrates, Júnior and etc. We used to say that they play by music and that watching Brazil play was not a football match but a spetacle. During that world cup, Brazil was destroying all the other teams. Everybody in the world was sure that Brazil woud be the champions of the world. For more than 10 years we did not have this honor so you can imagining how we were anticipating it. We got at the semifinals the fearsome Italy, very famous for their defensive system. Still, we were sure we could go to the finals because if the match ended tied, due to the best campaign, we would be finalists.

Brazil played very well but Italy desired more. The Italians played a perfect defensive system that held the Brazilians back and they had a striker in a blessed day. Paolo Rossi scored three goals that match. One of them was an impossible ball he shot in a angle where the ball passed between the goalie and the side post in a unbelievable place. The match ended 3 x 2 to Italy and destroyed the Brazilian spirit for years. We started to believe that to play the beautiful game was nice to watch but did not get us anywhere. We were only champions again 12 years later, in 94.

All this is to tell you that our reputation means nothing when we get into those four lines. We need to focus on how we play, and play every match as the match of our lives. Can we be SISAC champions? Oh yeah! Will we be? It depends of us, our mindset and the Football Gods. I trust in this team and a bit of superstition is more than welcomed so R2D2 will be there. 😉

Goals: Hailey (2), Marta (6), Kyra, Sinead, Franziska (2)
Assists: Inês, Louise, Marta, Sinead, Maddi, Greta, Franziska, Kyra
MVP of the match: Sinead

Bellatorum Invictum!

First match after the spring break it’s always tricky. We are out of shape after a long time of inactivity and being league champions already there is the natural relaxation and I freaked out when I discover on the eve of our match that BISS Puxi defeated the strong team from YCIS Puxi at YCIS by 7 x 5.  Maybe they had new players? Maybe when we faced them it was the beginning of the season and they were not organize yet. Whatever reason it was, I was concerned and I asked the girls to really don’t consider a easy match.

With all players fit and ready to play, it was the first time this season that Franziska actually started a match. My German Panzer still have to get the game timing but she seems perfectly in shape for the game. The team that started was: Bella, Katy and Inês defending. Franziska right midfield, Louise center midfield and Kyra left. Marta as our striker.

Their field is very short (it’s the half of a regular 11 aside field) and have a weird goal box, curved that looks like a futsal/hockey goalie area,  without the small box. Of course it took a while to us to get adapted to it but we kept playing our game, pressuring them on their defensive side until around 6:30 minutes, a goal kick was captured by Franziska, who assisted Marta and then it’s lethal; she dribbled a defender and shot ground level on the right side of the goal: 1 x 0.

On the 16th minute, BISS Puxi did the lethal mistake of passing the ball to the middle of their defensive field. Big mistake because Kyra was there. She trapped the ball, dribbled a defender and scored with her deadly left foot. 2 x 0.

On the 20th minute BISS had a solid chance. A bad deflection from Katy gave them an opportunity to be face-to-face against Bella but they shot out. As a matter of a fact our Defensive Rock was not in the best of days, missing challenges she would normally not miss and also not positioning herself  so I subbed her for Greta. I am trying to give as much time in the field as possible to all of the players because I know that during tournaments this will not happen. During SISAC and ACAMIS the games will be shorter 22 minutes each half and there will no space to someone not focused in the match to do any mistakes and throwing someone in the field in the middle of a fierce and competitive game can be very risky.

That was it for the first half. We had some good chances with Hailey and Marta but the goalie saved it. For the second half I started Maddi as defender while moving Inês to the right wing. Seemed to be a wise decision because one minute Inês received a perfect pass from Maddi, who turned, dribbled a defender and saw Marta alone in the box. She brilliantly lifted the ball and Marta had only the trouble to push it into the net. It was a masterpiece! 3 x 0.

Not long after, at the 41th minute of the match, Inês finds Marta in the middle of the offensive field, our MartaMessi sprints, leave two defenders behind and scores her third goal, 4 x 0 SCIS. But seems that three was too less for MartaMessi. She was in our half of the field when she got the ball, dribbled two and scored our fifth goal. Right after Marta scoring that goal, I gave some rest to her and subbed her. I wanted to see Franziska as a striker. Right after the substitution, Sinead, our Speedy “Irish” was hit hard, hurting her knee. She kept playing for a bit but had to be subbed afterwards because it was indeed hurting a lot.

An interesting moment in the match was when the referee stopped the game because two of our players had bleeding knees, Sinead and our Swedish Black Spider Bella, after a great save. By FIFA rules, we cannot have bleeding athletes in the field. The problem was we did not have a nurse available. After 5 minutes of not knowing what to do, the referee restarted the match. As a matter of a fact, the only schools that I am aware have a nurse available during the matches are ours ( I guess she is in her office, at least) and was SSIS, which was lucky because that match was exactly when we had the injuries of Kyra and Phoebe. I hope everything is ok with Sinead for the match this Thursday.

I am a bit sad because this next match will be our last playing at home. This is such an amazing team to work with that I sincerely don’t want this season to be over so soon. 10 more matches to go.

Goals: Marta (4), Kyra
Assists: Inês (2), Franziska
MVP of the match: Marta

Bellatorum Invictum!