League Match against the Undefeated Leaders (by Glenn Davies)

A scorcher of a day turned the heat up from the whistle blow.

Sporting showed that they meant business and were there for the win. A well-disciplined side that, judging by the screams from their coach, was not used to losing.

GAS started strong with solid formation, accurate passing, and a positive team spirit. We rattled the group leaders early on and controlled the tempo and flow of the game.

Both sides showed physical ability and an aggressive desire to dominate, which resulted in the referee awarding multiple early free kicks and a yellow card to Striker Glenn Davies.

Sporting jumped on the soft whistleblowing by the referee and milked several free kicks frustrating the GAS squad.

GAS’s defence was impenetrable, with Nik & Kam stopping any onslaught from Sporting and leading from the front.

Our midfield was solid and placed several through balls for the forwards, chasing down everything.

As we continued to keep control of the midfield, and from an excellent combination of passing between the squad, Julian struck an incredible shot that bulleted into the top left corner of the netting, putting GAS up 1-0.

Returning from the water break and with our backs up, we continued to push and fight hard for the ball.

Glenn saw an early opportunity to rush their keeper from a pass back and almost scored with a ricochet after the keeper tried clearing.

A few moments later, Glenn & Julian combined again, where Julian passed through a beautiful ball and saw Glenn take the ball across the goal box smashing a shot that hit the right goalpost and bounced out.

Sporting countered quickly and put a through ball down their left wing. Val cleaned the ball up, but a mistimed pass back to the keeper saw a panicked rush from our defenders to stop a certain shot on goal.

Nik ran in to save the day and, with a light shoulder-to-shoulder barge, saw the Sporting attacker dive forward and milk a weak penalty.

It was a clear brain explosion from the referee to award what even Sporting claimed to be a ‘soft penalty.’

Sporting made no mistake in pocketing the goal and taking the point-drawing game at halftime.

The 2nd half started with some changes from the bench from GAS.

Thomas kept control in the midfield and laid off some nice passes to Khan on the right, who made some excellent runs crossing in some good options.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t take advantage of several opportunities, and this is where the game started to take a turn.

A few more tactical changes into the 2nd half saw fresh legs come into the game, and we created more opportunities.

Some break-away sprints from Glenn down the wing left Sporting’s defenders helpless to defend.

But again, after passing into the center, our supporting players couldn’t finish.

An amazing half-volley effort by Thomas saw the ball scrape over the top bar, and again we couldn’t close.

As the ball made its way back up to the GAS half, Sporting popped in their second goal from a soft corner head skim.

We didn’t drop our heads, though, and kept fighting to the end.

Unfortunately, a 3rd late goal by Sporting sealed the win for the visitors, but GAS turned up the heat and pushed to the final whistle refusing to accept defeat.

Whilst we can say we were unlucky and the ref made some dubious calls, it’s the fighting spirit, grit & determination, and team support that we should take away from the match.

Well done, lads.

Glenn Davies