Lions advance in Hebiguchi Cup and drew vs. Gremio
Lions,
[ SIFL Hebiguchi Cup ] Shanghai Lions 3-0 Shanghai Vikings FC
On Saturday, we played against the Vikings in the first round of the Hebiguchi Cup. We had not played against them for a while and knew them for their physical game. Patrick was missing for a while as he was hit by an acute food poisoning after eating chicken tika masala the night before! We started very well and scored within 2 minutes by Romain and it was our Captain (Benji) who looked the most inspired player of all the Lions on the day scored the second two minutes later. When Matthieu scored our third goal everybody knew the game was over as goal difference doesn’t count in cup game…
We tried to look for small passing possession games in the second half but it was not easy to find the motivated to push for more! By this win we made it to the semi-finals of this cup.
[ SPL ] Shanghai Lions 2-2 Gremio
On Sunday we had a hard game against Gremio a strong Chinese / Brazilian team. The game consisted of two completely different halves. In the first half we found ourselves playing against only 9 Gremio players. We managed to get a quick goal from right back Francois who pushed forward and finished nicely. We tried very hard to score more and take advantage of the situation but we were not good in making the final pass or the final shot or header ! It was 1-0 at half time and in the second half Gremio had a full squad complete with three fast fit and furious African players ! It was a superb strike of one of them who brought the equalizer. There was nothing that Dim our goalie could do about it! We pushed Dave upfront and that move paid dividend as a fast counter and a good cross from Tomas C found Dave free in front of the goalie and he didn’t hesitate to score the 2-1. Now the game was on and we had to defend more and more and it was an off side hesitation that give Gremio the equalizer. We still got good opportunities to play on the counter and Cesar came closest only to see his shot hit one post and hit the other post, very unlucky!!! With 10 minutes to go we lost Nacho after the Chinese referee gave him two cheap yellow cards… We held on and in the end we could look back at a good second half!
This week and next week it will be a very busy weekend for the Lions:
- On Wednesday we will play the Dutch at our training pitch from 20:00 – 22:00 a win will put us on top of the SIFL.
- On Saturday we will play the Azzurri who will be in good spirit after they beat the Shooters 5-1 this Saturday.
- The veterans will take part on above 35 years old tournament on Saturday and we wish them success.
- On Sunday we have “el classico” in the SPL vs Marlins.
Let’s try to get the best out of all these games stay fit and focused!
Cheers Freek