Good result against Nippon

In the second last friendly game before the Cup competition starts, GSAS had to rely once again on a few players from Zweite. Hakim in goal was "Neueresque", and Jens and Oesi did equally well. However, the standout performers were no doubt the central defense pairing of Hamza and Pipo who are slowly growing into a wall. It was also nice to see former GSAS marathon man Jan Wiechmann in action.

GSAS looked second best in the opening 20 minutes or so with Nippon circulating the ball freely. But Hakim kept a clean sheet which allowed GSAS to take the lead through Julian, and then Florian doubling the lead with a neat flick into the back of the net after neat build up play from Marius and Oesi. However, Nippon reduced the deficit shortly before half-time when a speculative shot found its way into the net.

Half-time talk was about being patient and to let the ball do the running. We did that much better in the second half. To be fair, Nippon only had 12 players, whereas we could rotate our 15 players, which certainly made a difference. No surprise then that we took advantage of tiring Nippon legs with two late goals, both of them beauties. 3:1 Oesi with a crisp header on the second post from a brilliant Khan cross. And the final word was for Pipo, who converted Moustafa's pin-point free-kick with a great header into the top corner. Top drawer!

Despite our late surge in the game, it's obvious that we still have some deficits in fitness. No doubt, Micha will address these concerns in the coming training sessions. Next game: Friday 20 May, 9 pm against OG.