Senior team advance to SIFL Plate Cup Final
It was a beautiful day on Saturday with spring around the corner. Also, nice to see Cynthia back at the field… It meant we’ll have some nice photos from the pitch. For this semi-final SIFL Plate Cup, we were up agianst Anzacs with a large squad. Pat our playing coach sidelined himself to give other players more playing time.
The strategy was to get quick goals and not to sit back once we would have the lead. We started well by putting pressure on the Anzac defenders. We created good goalscoring opportunities but our forwards couldn’t convert them partly because the Anzac goalie made some good saves.
After 25 minutes, Samad was set on a free run on the right and Tobias only had to tip the ball in to give us the lead. We kept looking for a second goal and get several corners but they were no threat. However, a super cross from Skiv landed on Toby’s chest… He controlled the ball well and scored his second.
With 2-0 up we made the mistake to slow down and our level dropped. With one minute before the half time, the Anzacs punished our poor display from a cross from the left passing all our defenders for an easy finish.
We knew that we had to change our play in the second half and with Song and Peter back in the team we upped the tempo it was Toby who scored our third and his hat-trick.
As Samad didn’t score in the last couple of games and we wanted him back on the score sheet so when Hsam came in his job was to make Samad score and it was great to see that he did just that after a good one two with Song and a perfect flick in from Samad.
The icing on the cake came when Fergal scored with a nice shot and soon after Tom our right back being promoted to offensive midflied could score as well.
Anzac did get a gift from our side when we failed to clear a ball and the final score was a 6-2 win for the Lions.
[ SIFL Cup ] Shanghai Lions FC 6-2 Shanghai Anzacs
We are up against the Marlins this Saturday and we need to get a good result out of this game. The SIFL Plate Cup final will be against the Shooters. So many gig games for the Lions in the coming weeks.
Lets go Lions! Keep up the good start of 2022!
Cheers
Freek
