Second match of the day. Before talking about it, let me address the fact I’ve watched the two matches from BISS Pudong. Wow. They are playing REALLY well. Their center midfield (#25) and their striker (#30) are playing by music. It will be an incredible match against them tomorrow by the end of the day.
After a good start vs THIS, it was time to face the hosts, BISS Beijing. What a stress! Well, they came to this match with one goal, not concede goals. They literally stayed all defending. They had their best player inside their box almost the whole game! We had the absurd of 36 shots in 40 minutes. For the second half, it was their goalie taking a goal kick and we recovering that ball and pushing forward. Repeatedly.
Anyway, we started the match with Bella, Mikayla, Kyra defending, Inês center-midfield, Sinead on the left and Alice on the right with Franziska as the striker. To be sincere, at the first three minutes BISS Beijing actually was in our defensive system for a minute but as soon as we trapped them into a sequence of goal kicks, they did not leave anymore that space. Their captain, #4, was the one taking the goal kicks all the time. With the ball not leaving their defensive system, it was a shootout. First Sinead, then Franziska and then Inês shot a ball that hit the post at the 5th minute. Sinead was articulating well with Kyra on the left and gave an incredible pass to Inês on the 8th minute but the defenders deflected the shot. On the 13th minute, another exchange of passes that were great between Sinead, Inês and Alva, where she took a great shot at the goal but the goalie defended. And the “massacre” of shooting continues. Now at the last minute, Suh-Young and Alva also tried but there were so many players in the box that it was almost impossible. First half ended with a blank score. We dominated but did not score so we had 20 more minutes to change that.
Second half I’ve started with the same team that ended the first; Bella, Mikayla and Kyra, Inês, Suh-Young, Alva and Franziska. With one minute Alva headed a ball and almost score the first header goal from a cross ever in this team. With three minutes in the second half, Inês had a free kick and the goalie saved, the ball still hit the crossbar. Two minutes later, it was Suh-Young with a great chance that the goalie saved. Suh-Young was extremely well positioned later on and Inês found her inside the box but the goalie saved once more time. It was starting to get stressful. Specially on the 9th minute where on a corner kick, Mikayla get the ball, shoot at the goal, it’s deflected so Alva shoots and then Inês shoots a third time and the ball goes out. We were all forward now, with Mikayla being forward, as a pseudo center midfield. As a matter of a fact, the goal started with her. Almost as a left wing, she pushed the ball forward, passed to Alice. Our Wonder Alice gave a exquisite pass to Hailey who brilliantly served Inês, face to face with the goalie and did not missed. FINALLY! 1 x 0 SCIS. What a line of passing we did!
Unfortunately, right after that, bad news. Trying to trap a ball on our offensive goal line, Hailey stepped on the ball and fell. In my mind it was Dalian all over again, when she badly twisted her ankle. I was a bit less worried for the fact she was walking but still, I immediately asked her to come off the field. While I was worrying with her, Alva took a shot at the goal and a defender deflected the ball with her hand so penalty for us! I thought it would e a good test for Kyra, one of our three main penalty kick takers in case we have to go to penalties. With her amazing constant eye-contact, she managed to score and then 2 x 0 for us. As a matter of a fact, Kyra got a shot with 2 minutes and a half to end from almost the midfield that hit the Cross bar and the pole, it was awesome!
Nothing really happened after that. It was a match that we dominated but the goals took a while to happen so we got a little anxious. Bella touched twice on the ball in this match, just as a reference.
I have to say something that is driving me insane here. They are timing the matches like basketball! When 20 minutes is up, they simply stop the match, no matter if we spent more time retrieving the ball or even if we are scoring a goal. In the first match, the time was up, the referee kept the game going and we scored a goal. Then the referee whistled the end of the half. The timekeeper came to me and said that our goal would not be counted because it was after the time. That’s unreal! At night, at the coaches dinner that I did not attend because I was chaperoning the kids, It was said that it will be still like that. Only for free kicks or penalties it would not be but if has rebound of either one of those, it would not count. I never saw that in my life. Anyway, let’s keep playing on and hope that nothing weird happens.
Goals: Inês, Kyra
Assists: Hailey
MVP of the match: Hailey, for the incredible assist to Inês.