My Beloved Amazon Warriors,

Our journey together is coming to an end and it’s time to reflect and analyse those four years together.

If you had asked me four years ago where would I see our team in 2014, I would never imagine us undefeated for two years (46 matches) but I would have told you I would work for that. Although it may seem so nowadays, it was not an easy journey and I praise a lot those of you that have followed me every step of the way for those four years. It was very easy to think about quitting when we were the underdogs. Hey, I thought about it when, for a moment, I felt I was not able to help you out. For you girls that were part of the team who lost 6 x 0 to YCIS at home in 2011, this season is for you.

To the rookies of the team, congratulations. You bore the weight of our uniform with talent, courage and pride. Trust me, I know it’s not easy. I sincerely hope you always felt included in our little family and I think I can talk for all the veterans that without you, this season would not had been so amazing. This season is for you.

To the players that are not in our team anymore but deeply contributed to what we are today, my most sincere thanks. Without the skills and dedication of Nelis, Esmées, Lines, Victorias, Katys, Louises or Martas, we would not be the Amazon Warriors.

Often I caught myself thinking “Ok, we are good but how come we are always winning, year after year?” After all, we lose players, other teams get stronger but we still on the top. The only answer that I have for this question is: we always want it more. Our biggest adversary is not BISS Pudong or any other team. It’s our own goals that we set in our minds to achieve and we will not stop for anything to achieve it. The best example of this was the match in the Round Robin vs BISS Pudong. If the Elders remember, I was considering doing a crazy formation and risking losing so we could rest to be better prepared for a possible final later on. Your answer immediately was : “no, we don’t want to lose”. Ironically enough, the match itself offered some challenges with BISS Pudong scoring an amazing goal and us being behind in the score until the last two minutes of the match. Like you girls told me; you did not want to lose, so we didn’t. 17 matches, 16 wins and only one tie. That’s represents a team that was not ready to lose.

You may not believe when I’ve told you in Beijing but my time as a coach has come to an end. Where would I find such a committed group of athletes willing to follow my instructions to the letter, participating in crazy drills, or crazy practices like Zumba or Yoga? Where would I find a goalie that played a final match of a tournament with a broken foot? Or a player that even with the risk of a concussion played fearlessly? And a defender that even being out of breath, kept running until the last second of a match? Those are just some elements that makes this team special and unique.

I have one last drill for you, my Amazon Warriors. I want you to bring to your life the motto that I kept shouting from the sidelines to you in almost every single match, especially the matches when we were behind in the score. 0 x 0. The ball goes to the center, 0 x 0. No matter if you are ahead in the score or behind. That ball goes on the center, you must reset and play like it’s just beginning. Life will offer challenges.Life will offer comfort. No matter what you get, you should never accommodate or feel defeated. You have the power to put the ball on the center of the field, and restart the “match”.

Thank you for everything. I could not be prouder of all of you girls who had been part of this team, that gave me the honour of being your coach throughout those four years and I hope we can actually have a reunion in five years, somewhere in the world.

So, before I go, let me tell you a story… No.. Let me tell you the LEGEND of the Invincible Team… The Amazon Warriors… The Varsity Girls Football Team from SCIS Hongqiao.

BELLATORUM INVICTUM

 Erick Pessôa

Once more, the von Wahl family offered their home to host our amazing international banquet. If you thought last year was amazing, this year was incredible! We had food from Portugal, Germany, Sweden, USA, Brazil, Korea, Italy, Netherlands and even Australia! We invited Marta and Lily to join us. Lily was our official reporter throughout the season and she kindly enough brought a Australian dish (delicious!) Bella’s mom sent as gift for the girls a pair of footballs earrings, really cool.

We talked (or maybe it was me, I am not so sure now:)  ) for hours, reliving the amazing SISAC league/tournament. Kudos for the “hand” performance of Alva, Tehillah and Emma. The best part (and I am not ashamed of saying) are the leftovers. I always bring it home and then have delicious food for a week. This year, unfortunately, the girls were hungry! We did not have that much leftovers! I did not see the Kaptzan’s Pulled Pork! So disappointing. 🙂 On the other hand, Alva and Tehillah made enough pancakes to feed the Chinese population.

Wow! The hardest tryout ever! Thinking not only for this year but also for the following seasons, I present you the Amazon Warriors for 2014!

1 – Bella Bengtsson
2 – Mikayla Kaptzan
3 – Inês Nunes da Silva
4 – Phoebe Wardle
5 – Suh-Young Yoon
6 – Sinead Hunt
7 – Kyra Power
8 – Franziska von Wahl
9 – Alice Waller
10 – Alva Hiddell
11 – Tehillah van Raaij
12 – Hailey Gribble

Reserves:
Maddi Mondin
Greta Delfino*
*Greta is injured and she will have to go through a special tryout to confirm her condition on the team right after CNY.

See you all today, 3:15 in my classroom so we can address the season.

BELLATORUM INVICTUM.

Well, actually, nothing started yet. Today I’ve had our first meeting where I could see how many girls are planning to tryout for this season. We had 18 girls signing up! wow!

The tryouts will be:
Friday Jan 24th – 3:15PM – 5:15PM
Saturday Jan 25th – 10:00AM – 12:00PM
Monday Jan 27th – 4:30PM – 5:30PM

This year will be different from the other years. Instead of having home and away games, we will play all teams (7 not counting us) only once and unfortunately seems that we will have only 2 or 3 matches at home. The year the squad will be of 12 athletes with 2 or 3 reserves. The idea is exactly to avoid the horrible sensation of not knowing until the end of the season if you are going to ACAMIS or not.

It will also be a particularly emotional season to me since this is my last season coaching at SCIS after four years. As you probably know by reading all the entries in this blog, I will try to make this season unforgettable like the others. So let’s get prepared for the season where we will have to defend all the titles. A season where the teams will come to fight with extra strength against us. The season where we will put our motto to the test.

BELLATORUM INVICTUM!

This is an open letter to my beloved Amazon Warriors. I thought I should write this before reviewing our last day at ACAMIS. That historical day will be posted soon.

My Amazon Warriors,

We made it! After the most intensive two and half months of football we come to the end of our journey. You girls have no idea how happy and proud I am with each one of you. We overcame so many obstacles like IB, injuries, lack of practices and we broke all records that previously existed.

What else can I say to the perfect team? To the team that never gives up. To my invencible warriors? What makes me happy is not only the titles but seeing your happiness after each victory, after each championship. It was an unique learning experience. We worked as a solid team with people that we are not necessarily close to and we put differences aside and conquered the world.

Our season is unquestionable. We faced the best teams of our league and we beat them. I remember three years ago in Taiwan when we had to play against the mighty team of BISS Pudong that I was more worried not losing by much than actually winning. Look at us now. Our last three matches against them we won, and playing at their own field! This team brought the SCIS Hongqiao name to a level of respect in the league that few teams ever had.

Girls, I know I can be rather emotional and exaggerated but let’s face our numbers. We won our league with 100% of points. We hadn’t lost a single point in 13 matches. In total we played 23 matches; lost one, tied one and won 21 matches. We scored the absurd of 113 goals and suffered the measly 10 goals. It’s an unprecedented average of 4.9 goals per match, and this is counting tournaments with 40 minutes matches. Do I need to say more about this team?

In our chat before the finals I told you how I would like to perceive this season in our lives; I want you girls to be proud of what you had achieved. So proud that in the future, when you have your own kids you can bring back those memories and tell them that once you were part of a team that played by music, prolific goal scorers and that there was no battle we were afraid of facing.

I will miss our practices. I will miss our happiness before and after matches. I will miss the drama of injuries or miscommunications. I will miss all of you. In the individual letters I wrote to you I already left my personal message to each one of you. I have no words to thank you for your dedication and commitment to this project. I am a better coach thanks to each one of you and I hope this time we spent together, either one season or to some of you three long years, I was able to help you being a better athlete and a better person.

Next year some of you are facing a new journey in your life away from SCIS, some of you will not be able to play due to other priorities. I hope you all be extremely successful in the next step of your lives. What I can tell is that you girls are now one of my stories that I will tell years to come and it starts like this: “Guys, let tell you a story! Once I had this amazing football team. 13 girls that won it all. They got the triple crown. They were my Amazon Warriors….”

Thank you for everything.

Yours,
Coach Pessôa

Finally we have the complete schedule relevant to us:

Thursday April 18th:

10:55AM – Bus leaves SCIS (athletes and coach must be in class for the first block).
03:00PM – SCIS HQ Vs KAS
05:15PM – Bus back from BISS Pudong to SCIS HQ

Friday April 19th:

7:00AM  – Students must be at SCIS
7:15AM – Bus leaves SCIS
9:00AM – SCIS HQ Vs BISS Pudong
1:00PM – BCIS Vs SCIS HQ
5:00PM – DCS vs SCIS HQ
6:45PM – Bus back from BISS Pudong to SCIS HQ

Saturday April 20th:

7:00AM  – Students must be at SCIS
7:15AM – Bus leaves SCIS
10:00AM – SCIS HQ Vs BISS Beijing
This is the end of the round robin. The time for the next matches will depend on how we do during this part. We can play either 1PM and 3PM or if we are not in the top 4, we will play only at 2PM.
7:00PM – Awards Dinner at BISS Pudong
9:00PM – Bus back from BISS Pudong to SCIS HQ

Take a look at this table. After an exhausting day, this was an oasis to sore eyes. The team had the brilliant idea of having a dinner to get together and talk about. This is not  the team dinner, celebrating the end of the season. The team dinner will be May 20th, at Latina Xintiandi.

This dinner was an idea to have a team bonding experience and since I name our plays according to typical dishes from our player’s origins (Frikadeller, Bacalhau, Paella and Schnitzel) we decided that each one of us had to do a traditional dish. What a brilliant idea! The Von Wahl family was kind enough to open their house to us and we had a great time talking about the season and specially our great championship early in the day. It was funny to relive some key moments from our final match, specially. The energy in this group of athletes is incredible.

I was actually really impressed that the girls scheduled the dinner the same day of SISAC. Imagine if we had lost the tournament? The mood would be terrible. I have to confess that even if we lost, it would not stop me from eating. The food was amazing! I ate so much that I even got depressed afterwards. As a guy that has no clue on how to cook,  tried to get as much food back with me as possible so for days now I will be eating Paella, Swedish meatballs codfish and etc. I am definitely a lucky coach to have such a wonderful team with incredible culinary skills. 🙂

Girls,

The calendar for the season is up! Check the link on the menu, CALENDAR and soon I will prepare an iCal calendar with it so you can subscribe and be aware of any changes. Just rectifying on Monday our tryouts are 4:15PM, not 3:15. Seems that the field will be used for after school activities.  The team list will be posted on this website and at my door at 9:30AM on Tuesday Feb 5th. Any questions, please let me know.

Good luck to you all and see you on Monday!