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Shanghai Lions Football Club

Lions beat the Shooters 1-0 to stay on top of the SIFL !

Lions,

 

We knew it was going to be a tough game. With four first team players not in Shanghai we struggled to make a full squad even the President himself brought his Lions kit, just in case…..! Most of our missing players were our forwards so we had to chance our strategy a bit and decided to play 4-3-1-2. The shooters are known for starting strong in the first 15 minutes and we want to stay clean and not concede an early goal. Soon we found out that the referee was going to be bad but in all fairness he was bad for both teams. We should have had a clear penalty in the first half but the referee was still in the middle circle not sure about his eyesight. On the other side the shooters got a free kick on the left and Dim our goalie saved it by the cross bar but to his horror saw Gui heading it in. The lines man for once raised his flag for off-side not sure it was to be honest. It was a stale mat at half time 0-0. The Lions actually liked this scenario as they knew they could wait for their one or two chances. In the second half we played better and with the help of the wind actually create two good opportunities but Thomas and Patrick couldn’t convert them into goals. In the end the goal came and it was one  for the history books and the creator was Benji who when he got the ball on left decided to go on a rampage by passing several shooters when he came at the edge of the box he had two more shooters players to go and when he was alone in front of the keeper he knew he would score and indeed that’s what he did.

In the last 15 minutes the Shooters kept pushing and didn’t give up they got several free kicks but failed to score. A brilliant save of Dim at the end sealed the three points for a very hard working Lions team  !

The Shooters are now 8 points behind but Lions have one game in hand and Azzurri are 6 points behind and Lions also have one game in hand the closest rivals are now Reunited who are two points behind us. We will meet them in two weeks but first need to play against the Dutch on Sunday !

 

Cheers Freek

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