Matchreport Fellas 1 : J-Leaguers 2
Sunny afternoon, Saturday 27, lovely 25 degrees - couldn't get any better! And it did not get any better indeed - but I shouldn't spoil the end of the story before even starting.
Fellas came to the ground with high hopes to end their losing unlucky streak in all competitions. Even the presence of the very vocal Mes Amis, who infamously drew the game before with Force, could not impress us at all.
All fellas agreed that they felt uncomfortable on the pitch - a fact that would eventually play to our matchday's opponent's advantage.
J-leaguers in the meantime were assembling a squad of near Ben Hur sizes on the sidelines.
After a brief warm-up, howie called the squad together. Just a few words from myself and Howard presented the line-up:
Martin
Kai Howie Bear Kettz
Leo Ced D-Cheung Garrow
Paul Shaka
Subs from nobody
Our strategy was
Stay tight in the back to deal with their famous un-japanezeee long balls. Pass the ball on the ground, otherwise "you get to go in goal". Uuh, now we were impressed.
Eins - Zwei - Drei - FELLAS and off we went. Form the start, we were trying to get into our passing groove, which was a good sign, with especially our strikers working a lot back to front to give their fellow fellas more options. The back four felt increasingly nervous as J-Leaguers were pressing real high when we were in posession - especially their wingers fast on closing down our full-backs. Again, fellas were giving the ball away far too easily, which J-Leaguers quickly turning to attack, playing their signature long balls just behind our line of defence, with their strikers running straight at and beyond the centre of our defence.
That lead to some few awkward moments, especially after Jules arrived to replace the lucky Belgium in goal. Which had nothing to do with Jules, but J-Leaguers were increasing their pressure, which culminated in loud claims for penalty after myself rather clumsily but nevertheless very intentionally fumbled one of their strikers over who was through on goal - just to make sure that the jeering Mes Amis were by now fully on J-Leaguers side.
After that we gained our composure back, Howie grew at least one head taller and together we cleared those dirty long balls out of the area.
Up front Paul and Shaka combined well with Ced behind to work out quite a few chances, but the strikers found themselves way too often in an offside position. One thing to mention was Kai, who not a natural defender as we know had his side pretty much under control, but sprained his ankle and had to be replaced by Martin.
Halftime and it was still 0:0. No oranges but 100% confidence that we could win a game of so many 50/50s. The coach ordered the wingers back to help the fullback against the long diagonal balls from the sides. Also not to press too high to give our strikers more space to run at their defence.
Line up this time around:
Julian
Martin Howie Bear Kettz
Leo Ced D-Cheung Garrow
Paul Shaka
Subs from Mark
Injured: Kai
No time for more German announcements this time as we went off again. We started solid this half, but gaining maybe a wrong sense of security in the back.
The good thing is when you write the match report that late, it's hard to remember all the details. So I'm happy to let you know that I can't really remember how badly we lost possession from a holding position to give J-Leaguers the advantage in the box, then a through ball, taken around Julez and BANG into our net. But I do recall those bl**dy Mes Amis cheering for the team in light-blue.
We came back though, after Howie sent in a beautiful piece of a corner, that our head-of-steel Cedric headed from close range past the Japanese keeper with that sort of vengeance that only angry frenchmen can produce - KAWOOM!
With mounting pressure from the fellas, J-Leaguers looked more and more uncomfortable in the back. Well, until Paul, who had quite a decent game so far indeed, missed an absolute sitter from closer range after Leo had passed half a dozen players on the left to sent in that perfect cross. Anyway, short after we were punished for such miss, as we lost the ball on the right again, and J-Leaguers threw some fresh legs at us, a diagonal ball to the left past a tired scotsman and into the net to the big noise of the crowd - OH NO! After that we pressed again hard for the equalizer but to no avail.
What else was their to mention? Oh yes, Mark T is not a winger and Leo sprained his ankle - so we were back to 11.
Well, it wasn't getting any better from the start, was it?
