Lions keep on its “Russian Mountain” ballad in SIFL

Lions,

[SIFL] Shanghai Lions FC 0 – 4 Shanghai ReUnited

Earlier in the week, we were once more struggling to make a team for the Saturday SIFL game… Thanks to the help of few legends such as Gwen or Laid + youngster Riccardo, we finally managed to make a team.  Without players such as Azz & Felix plus the fact that captain Benji had to start on the bench with a back pain, we were not the only the team to have depth bench issues… Sebastian Becker from ReUnited himself had to dress-up to make the number while waiting his black superstars slowly to come 15 mn after the game.

So we started the 1st half organized in 4-3-3 with youngster Riccardo as GK and Rad upfront. As the pitch was in really really poor state, our goal was to avoid stupid mistake in the back and try to play in counter as much as possible. The plan worked well and both team neutralized each other with only 1 or 2 opportunities. Best 1st half opportunity came from Rad who hit the post after a nice combination.

At half-time, we said that keeping organized & winning the physical combat + second balls shall be key to win the game. Well, it was meant to be words only… Poor free kick from the all defense line was a sign that technicality was missing… A midfield in perdition after experienced Thomas Zitoun left us at half-time for personal duties… It was too much and we quickly took a goal followed by 2 others with 25 mn to go. In order to stop the bloodshed, Benji came in to stabilized the midfield… It proved to work a little as we started to play better and enjoy our game a bit despite an anecdotal 4th goal from ReUnited & a beautiful header from Jack which hit the post.

 

After Shooters game last weekend, this is the 2nd time in a row that we lose a SIFL game while managing to get to half-time at 0-0. On both occasions, our opponents were not playing amazing football. Tactically and mentally, our level is probably not good enough and not so long ago, it was us crushing our opponents in 2nd half. Beside the lack of depth in our squad, our poor fitness / commitment to the training is probably the main reason behind our troubles this year… Fitness is key and as always we give you plenty of training opportunities.

Cheers
Francois