With victory in hand Masa can keep playing for the seniors

Last Saturday, the senior team was up against japanese team Shanghai Pures FC. Masa san summarized well what was the mindset of our oldest players before the game…

If we don’t beat the Pures; maybe it’s time to retire from senior football.
Masa T.

Having this in mind, we started the game like a dragster with Masa scoring from a closed range header 5mn into the match. Perfect start for the Lions with the objective to score many more. This is what we tried to do confiscating the ball and putting pressure on their goalie with various kind of shoots.

What sounded promizing at the beginning started then to turn into a mental disease… Indeed, after we missed several “clear” one on one opportunities vs. Pures goalkeeper; domination turned into doubt. We kept on trying but every time our shoots ended either next to the box; either directly on the goalie. 1-0 at halftime while it could have easily been 5-0 🙁

The half-time talk focused on 2 thing only: Showing more character & being more killer on our scoring opportunities.

Unfortunately, we kept on doing the same rushing our scoring chances in the beginning of the 2nd half… This until the 65mn where Hira finally gave us the 2-0 lead. Then the mental-lock got lifted like magic. With the difference made, we got more calm and scored almost on all the opportunities we got. First with FL on a perfect corner from Louka. Then Alban. With Ryan to finish who finally scored with confidence on his last one on one opportunity.

[ SIFL ] Shanghai Lions FC 5-0 Shanghai Pures FC

As Freek said, “up we go” into the league ranking with this victory. No need for Masa and other elderly players to retire yet from the senior team. It was good also having Marcel back into the team almost 2 years after leaving Shanghai because of Covid.