22 vs 12

German Swiss All Stars went into this next friendly game with a rather unfamiliar looking line-up. Travel, injury, illness ravaged through the squad and we ended up with 13 (make that 12 after Alex went off after 5 minutes) to face the Turf City boys in blistering heat. We managed to field a team only thanks to the support from Zweite and Dritte.
After a slow start to the game we took the lead when Oesi pounced onto a loose ball in the box and beat his fellow Austrian in the TC goal. We held on to this lead until just before the break when a ball split our central defense and the striker finished nicely over Christian. Until then, Christian kept us in the game with a couple of very good saves.
The message at half time was to conserve energy, let the boys do the running and tighten up central midfield with a switch to a 4-5-1. Unfortunately for us, TC brought on a full new squad in the second half and we found ourselves down 3:1 within a few minutes. At that point, it looked like this could be a very long afternoon for us. But the team reacted beautifully, putting up a great fight against the faster and fitter boys of TC. We kept the scoreline at 3:1 until 5 minutes before the end, when Valery hammered home from outside the box after a corner kick was cleared poorly. We had a couple of half chances for the equalizer, but the game ended in defeat.
This was a very, very good performance where we stayed in the game against all odds. Every player involved today deserved a lot of credit for putting up a great fight. With this attitude we are on the right track!

Next up: Hotspurs next Saturday 3 pm. Let's hope we get some more regulars back onto the pitch