Seniors had a good pre-season workout against ReUnited
We are still pre-season that means we need to train hard to get our fitness back first and play a couple of friendly matches. Last Saturday, we organized a training workout session against ReUnited; a strong team who have been playing together for many years.
As we’re still missing a couple of key players for various reasons, we gave opportunities to our youth players to play. With Jay our youth goalkeeper in the goal, we had almost 50% of the squad represented by our youth team!
We started well in the first 30 mn as we got a lot of possession. Our objective was to stay compact and look for counter opportunities with our 2 strikers Masa-san & Nicolas L. It was good to see we could make combinations and take some control of the game. Unfortunately, ReUnited (being more experienced) took advantage when we didn’t deal well with a ball at our right defense and they were happy to take the lead. ReUnited scored a 2nd goal with a great combination from their midfield setting up their SIFL top scorer to make it 2-0.
With a great ball from Cyril, Seiwa ran out ReUnited defender and finished nicely to score his 1st goal for the Senior team. Soon after we did exactly the same with a great through ball from Masa-san (blue beard) to set up our youth players Yu Xuan who also scored his 1st goal for the senior team.
We went into the break positive because of our come back. However after the break it was an uncharacteristic error of Pat in the back that gave ReUnited the lead back… 5 minutes later ReUnited tried their luck knowing we had a junior keeper to lob over him from a long distance.
In the end the score didn’t matter for a friendly and we kept playing. It was nice to see Nicolas scoring his 1st senior goal as well from a header after a good cross of our youngster Henry.
[ Friendly ] Shanghai Lions FC 3-6 Shanghai ReUnited
Now, we need more workout to improve ourselves week by week. This is starting this Tuesday at the training.
Cheers
Freek