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