What an impressive presentation at home. For the first time we were playing with our red jersey at home and this seemed to boost our confidence and enhance our spirits. With no mercy rules preset we were ready to respect our adversary by playing our best from beginning to end and that’s what we did. Annoyed by the way defenders were approaching her when we played them last time, Marta had an extra motivation to “extrude her claws” and show her full striking potential. Actually, it did not take long for that. With 1:54 minute Marta was pushed when getting ready to strike. Foul in our favor, a bad wall setup by the goalie, 1 x 0 to us with two minutes into the match.
Be ready for an extensive post, after all, there were 12 goals in total. During warm up Phoebe felt some pain on her foot so I decided to start with Maddi defending together with Katy, moving Inês to the right wing while having Suh-Young on the left. Louise as middle and Marta as striker. I knew WISS does not have a fast team so Katy is the one giving the first combat while Maddi is our last woman defending, giving time to Katy to recover and help. I constantly switched Maddi and Greta and after every single match I can see them improving in their positioning and passing.
Back to the game; after 1 minute of our goal, Suh-Young recovers a ball in our offensive field and passed beautifully to Marta, who had only the trouble to push it inside the goal. 2×0. 6:43, their goalie passed a ball to Marta, which calmly dribbled a defender and shot. 3×0. At 7 minutes, our team shut down for a second, letting WISS play, and they got a shot but who have Bella as a goalie, don’t have to worry too much. Nice save from our Swedish Wall but this kind of mistake against a team like BISS Pudong or YCIS Px can be fatal. WISS kept pressuring until we had what I call a “direct call” from Bella to Marta. Bella got the ball, passed all the way from her box to Marta at the offensive field, the ball bounced twice, WISS goalie came out of the goal and Marta gently pushed the ball to the right side of the goal. Marta.. I mean, SCIS 4 x 0. Tired of reading the words “goal” and “Marta”? Well, there is more. 11:29 minutes, Inês with a brilliant side throw serves Marta who shots an indefensible ball. 5 x 0 .
We had an absurd number of corner kicks in the match. Total of 18 corners and on our 7th, Louise shot, Marta tried to trap the ball but it rolled a bit too far and a panicked defender shot it… To her own goal. 6 x 0. To rest my veteran Seniors, I assigned Inês to be the center midfield and Hailey as the striker. After two corner kicks, a ball was deflected and Inês shout a gorgeous chip shot over the goal, what we call in Brazil as a chapéu (hat) or lençol (sheet) because it “covered” the goalie. 7 x 0.
At the 28th minute of the first half their most dangerous chance. Katy lost her timing and their #9 was alone in front of Bella. With no other alternative, Katy pushed her. Luckily it was a few centimeters out of the box. Their best player, #10 shot off bounds. We kept the pressure but they had some counter-attacks, like at 31st minute when #10 dribbled Katy, passed to the middle and their #9 took a shot that Bella beautifully deflected. By this time, I was testing Louise as a striker and Marta as a center-midfield. It’s interesting to see how a player can adapt to their recurrent roles. Both of them can play well in different positions but not as good as their original ones. Louise has a good shot but in the center midfield she is key to help the defenders and distribute the game while Marta struggles to defend, it’s not her strongest asset. Inês and Kyra are my most versatile players, able to play in virtually any position. Actually Kyra can brag about being able to play in every position since even as goalie she played this season.
Not much happened by the end of first half and beginning of second half, until on the 45th minute when Katy passed to Marta on our defensive side of the field and then Marta “Usain Bolt” sprint in a way that the Jamaican would be impressed, with #6 from WISS playing catch but in vain; 8 x 0. Her speed in this play was absurd. It was a burst of energy that probably left burnt tracks on the field, I have to check it afterwards. 🙂
Just so you guys don’t get bored or reading Marta’s name in this post, our own Gangnam Style, our Korean pride Suh-Young scored a goal after a gorgeous pass from our captain Louise. With this goal, Suh-Young broke the jinx of never scoring a goal whenever her boyfriend comes to watch a match. If this did not happen, I would not allow him to watch our match against YCIS next week. 🙂 9 x 0 SCIS.
On a corner kick at the 51st minute, Louise shot and a WISS defender pushed it inside their own goal. 10 x 0. And again, at the 53rd minute. Corner kicks seems to be a great asset of our team. We scored an incredible amount of 8 goals that were directly originated from corner kicks. 11 x 0.
With this score, the coach from WISS started asking the referee to end the match, which is against the established rules. Out of courtesy, he should had asked me if I agree or not which he did not. When we played against Hangzhou, their coach came to me and ask if it was ok to end the match and I agreed. What I don’t agree is someone forcing a situation that is not clearly established by the rule. He came to me shouting what are we learning from this. Well, “a lot” I answered. I was rotating players in different positions, I was training passes and so on. For me it was like a high level scrimmage so yes, we always have something to learn. As a matter of a fact, WISS also can take advantage of it. I learnt a lot after years losing to YCIS and BISS Pudong. Anyway, after some shouting back and forth I agreed upon ending the match but my team seemed not to agree that much so at the last corner kick, Louise shot, defenders deflected and Marta scored her seventh goal in the match, our 12th. I have to say I never saw Marta smiling so much in my life. 🙂
There is no question that the name of this match is our own MartaMessi but I need to be clear about something before I end my post. Marta is a great player and there is no question she is key for our campaign but Marta does not win the matches alone. If you only read this post and not all the site, you probably thinking that SCIS team is Marta + 12 but it’s not..It’s 12 + Marta or even better, 13 players. Before playing for SCIS Marta was playing for Rego where she did not have a strong team playing with her. Of course there were matches that Marta decided by herself (one of them, unfortunately, cost our League Title last year) but still, Rego was on the bottom part of the table in the league last year. If it’s not for Bella’s saves, Katy’s solid defence posture, Sinead’s sprints back and forth and Louise distributing the game, I doubt we would have such a successful season.
Let’s enjoy our success this week because next week is key! Vs. YCIS and German school at home. I wish I could take this rainy Sunday off but now it’s time to grade and write comments for Monday since I am way behind schedule due to Oliver! (amazing musical!) production. So Amazon warriors, enjoy the weekend off and full force next week!
Goals: Marta (7), Suh-Young (1), Inês (1)
Assists: Louise, Suh-Young
MVP of the match: Marta