Shanghai Premier League

Amigo's and Amiga's,

You will wonder who on earth is Sao Ching Niang....? Well
actually she is not on earth as she is a famous Chinese
Godess in charge of the weather. She is nick named the
"Broom Lady" as she uses a broom to move clouds whenever
there is a big occasion, like the Beijing Olympic games for
instance ! Well Saturday night it was raining and with a
full 4 games program on Sunday I knew we could be in a bit
of trouble.  Luckily ms Sao helped us out as exactly at 9.00
AM the rain stopped and the games could go on as planned. In
the evening its started to rain again, all I could do was
look up and smile to Shao Ching who was waiving with her
broom !

Flamenkos - Super 48 7-1
This was a SPL Cup qualification game which was a good warming up for the Flamenkos. Hans commented after the game that Super 48 was playing decent football, keeping apace with flamenkos for a good 20 minutes, even making them a little nervous, which indeed is good to see that they are improving week by week !

Hawks - Galacticos 6-1 
I received a text message from the Galacticos Manager/Captain Ned at 3.00 AM in the morning. "Iassume the games are off tomorrow right" ?  Think half of his team got stuck in the nightlife and never made it to the
pitch ! Still the ones who made it had a good game of football.

Dulwich - Bulls 1-0
Bulls were low on numbers as well and Dulwich was at full strength. Very even game in the first half 0-0. Second half Dulwich had more energy and power so actually they wasted quite a few good opportunities but
managed to score one which gave them all three points.

Japan - ERS 8-4
Very entertaining game ERS decided to attack in full style which resulted in quite a spectacle. Goals everywhere and the first half score was even with 2-2. In the second half ERS had their defense exposed a few times
and that's dangerous vs Japan esp when our French Friends were running out of battery.....!
On a positive note no other team managed to score 4 goals against Japan this season who are now top of the SPL equal on points and goals with the Lions !

Right before the start of the year of the Tiger we will have
our SPL quarter finals on 7th of February. As these are
outright Cup ties I don't dare to make predictions and would
recommend everybody to come and see for themselves !

9.30  AM Flamenkos - ERS

11.15 PM Japan - Lions

13.00 PM Dulwich - Hawks

14.45 PM Galacticos - Bulls

The weather forecast calls for rain but hopefully we can
count on Sao Ching's broom again ! 

Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

We are happy to see that the Fairplay is back at the SPL ! The above picture taken by ERS was a nice gesture and appreciated by everybody. This Sunday was “cardless” which of course is always a positive sign as well !

ERS – Super 48 5-0 
We cannot deny it anymore as Super 48 is clearly stronger in 2010, the days of double digit losses are over for them, however the three points were very welcome to the French Red Stars as they struggle this year to win games.

Flamenkos – Hawks 6-0
Andrea struggled to get a team out and flamenkos came out with full force hungry for points and goals.

Lions – Galacticos 6-0
Lions were more hungry to win and 2 goals from Big Michael within the first 5 minutes set the tone for the rest of the game. Both teams enjoyed the ice cold beers at Latina after the the game and Lions are back on top of the SPL.

This coming Sunday we will have a full four games program. Weather forecast calls for some rain so pls keep an eye on the weather !
Ps note the new times for this weekend !

9.30 AM Flamenkos – Super 48 
The winner of this game will be allowed to enter the Cup Competition next week the loser will have a bye next week !

11.15 AM Galacticos – Hawks
Galacticos lost two in a row now and would like to get that winning feeling back and for the Hawks it will all depend whether they can field enough players.

13.00 PM Dulwich – Bulls
First game of the Dulwich in 2010 and a big one as the Bulls are strong this year: expect a lot of goals in this game.

15.00 PM E-Rouge – Japan
Last year around the same time ERS beat Japan 5-2 one of their best victories. Will history repeat? Come and see it for yourself.

See you all on Sunday ! Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee !

Amigo's and Amiga's,

It was a pleasure to be out and play football as we had clear blue skies and a mild 12 degrees in Shanghai !

Japan - Super 48 4-0 
An all Japanese game !
The first half Japan took a 3-0 lead and hoped to score more goals the second in order to increase their goal tally as they would be equal points with the Lions because Lions didn't play.
However the second half it didn't work out as Japan's attack after attack had no result just one goal ! So watch out for Super 48 as they are getting stronger by the week !

Hawks - Bulls 3-3 - game suspended
I watched the first half and it was very good game with both teams going for the goals. Bulls had Nico back our last year top scorer and he unsettled the Hawks defense a few times. It gave the Bulls a 2-0 cushion at half time. Second half saw the hawks coming back and with a few minutes to play it was 3-3. Unfortunately for everybody there was an incident at the end of the game which is under investigation by the SPL Committee and resulted in suspension of the game.

Flamenkos - Galacticos 4-1
Galacticos was brought back to earth as the Flamenkos were playing better football most of the game.
Also important to mention was that Alex the Flamenko striker scored another 3 goals. As defender you better watch out for him as his is climbing on the topscorers chart with Maglev Speed !
Also noteworthy is that every game there seem to be more and more supporters of all ages coming to the Flamenkos games. This time we counted no less than 5 toddlers. Next game I assume they'll have their own daycare set up along the pitch...

This coming Sunday we might be lucky with the weather again.
The calls are for a blue sky and 11 degrees this time whereas on Monday it will rain !!

11.00 E-Rouge - Super 48 
A win will be good for our French Friends however the current form of Super might give them good resistance this time !

13.00 Hawks - Flamenkos
Flamenkos are unbeaten in 2010 and
will try to keep their run. For sure we can expect a lot of
goals !

15.00 Galacticos - Lions Big game almost as big as "el
classico" if you like football and like to see a fair-play
battle come and see this game !

Hope to see all of you on Sunday / Cheers Freek SPL
President on behalf of the SPL committee

Amigo's and Amiga's,

Havoc everywhere in the world on the weather front !
Its still a miracle we could play two games in Shanghai on Sunday !
Most of us do remember on the rainy days we used to play back in Europe, we called that typical "Football Weather" days !
That's what we had and four teams were lucky to be able to enjoy it. One of the happiest person I have seen for a while was Danielle of the Galacticos as she became the first Female Player to have ever scored in the SPL !
On behalf of everybody in the SPL congratulations to her and we do realize that now the pressure is on Miki.
Hopefully she will score soon !

ERS - Flamenkos 5-1
Sometimes the way you start a game can make the difference and especially in these weather conditions that might be true.
Half an hour before the kick off I counted 15 Flamenkos on the pitch and only 2 ERS players.
The game was good with fast moving football and the Flamenkos with the Spanish Blood were more deadly in front of the goal and that made the difference !

Galacticos - Super 48 9-2
To me it looked like the Super 48 are getting stronger as they got more possession and scored two good goals and it could have been more as they hit the wood work. But of course this kind of weather was a big plus
for the Galacticos who with the help of Danielle worked hard to get a better Goal Tally for this season.

Japan - Lions we called of out of consideration for the field.
The pitch is in great condition and it's as much in our interest as it is in the schools interest to keep it like that.

The weather outlook for this Sunday is excellent blue sky and 12 degrees so I am looking forward to a thrilling SPL weekend with great Games !

11 PM Super 48 - Japan 
An all Japan affair the pitch will look like down- town Tokyo and I am sure Super 48 will try hard this time to go for the up set of the season !

13 PM Hawks - Bulls
Will be interesting to see how both teams come out of their wintersleep. Attacking Football for sure !

15 PM Flamenkos - Galacticos
Last time they played the score was 6-5 so best is to come all down to the field and watch this game !

Frederik thank you for saving my life and as promised 2010 will be THE
Football year with many historic moments the SPL was the first to have one !

See you all this Sunday !
Enjoy winter in Shanghai not a bad place to be !

Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee

Amigo's and Amiga's,

We have had to protect El Presidente.
In his search for ever better and more exciting cup draws, he was about to go over the top.
Last season we had the highest cup draw at Yamada tower.
Last year Freek went all the way out to India for the Santa Cup draw.

Now for the 2010 SPL Cup draw we found him tying together rubber strings for an attempt to do a cup draw while bungee jumping of the newly opened Burj-al-dubai.
We had to interfere. We love our president too much.

So we went back to basics.
The innocent hand of a child did the SPL cup draw 2 nights back.
(child in case being Anna, daughter of our webmaster, you must have seen her supporting her dad's team Flamenkos at the sidelines, or perhaps you remember her stealing the corner post flag at one of your games)

You can double check on the draw in the movie below, and the result of the draw in the file to the side (ru.
OK, I admit. Perhaps the cards aren't very readable.
If you insist, you could download a better copy of the movie here (mind you, it's 165MB!), where the cards may be read.

But hey, it was a fair draw...
The fact that Flamenkos have to play the qualifier is proof of that, isn't it?

May the best team hold the SPL cup this year!


On behalf of the SPL Comittee,
Frederik Geirnaert

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

First of all on behalf of the SPL Committee we wish everybody a healthy and happy 2010 !

As for the SPL we will continue to focus on the Friendship / Football Competition / Fun and Fairplay ! The first half of our competition is behind us and after the Santa Cup most of us went either home or stayed in China celebrating the New Year ! Basically it means that we are all out of shape and this will give opportunities for some surprise results in the games during the winter period ! We surely will get the World Cup Fever once we are getting closer to June and with the Shanghai Expo to open on the first of May we can expect more players to come in and more interest into our league as in the end we are the “United Nations” playing football on Sunday’s in Green City Shanghai !

This coming Sunday we have three games on the menu :


11.00 AM E-Rouge – Flamenkos 
The French tend to over eat during the New Year break so that could be an advantage for the Belgium/Spanish combo but for sure both teams will be very eager to get three points. So it will be a fair played battle !

13.00 PM Galacticos – Super 48
Both teams were one of the most active participants at the Christmas Party at Latina and in drinking Super 48 looked a bit stronger / Galacticos are looking stronger by the day so we can expect a lot of goals !

15.00 PM Lions – Japan
This will be a top game as both teams are still unbeaten this season and are equally strong / you can place your bets now !

 
The weather will be fine despite all the snow and freezing cold stories we hear in the USA and Europe and North China . Where is the global warming when you need it where is Al Gore ? Maybe we see him watching one of our games !

 

Let the winter games start ! See you all on Sunday / Cheers Freek SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee

Santa, Amigo's and Amiga's,

To be honest its rather easy to organize a soccer tournament
during the summer of Shanghai as you are more or less
guaranteed a perfect weather condition and everybody loves
to play football under a nice summer breeze.

To get a Santa Cup organized is a different ball game all
together as you never know what the weather condition will
be and how do you know that when its freezing cold the
players will still turn up to play or not........
So my first problem started when I went to the Xinjiang market on
Saturday  to look for the "Santa Hats" for all the players
who would turn up in order to appreciate the fact that they
came despite the horrible weather ! Last year I found one
shop selling Christmas items but this year no matter where I
looked I couldn't find it any more. "Sir you want rolex ?"
"Sir you want hand bag ?" "Sir you need sun-glasses ?" "Sir
you need shoes cheap cheap cheap ?" I knew I was in trouble
as I didn't know what was a "Santa Hat" in Chinese and how
the hell I could explain them I had the Santa Cup in Green
City 20 hours from now. I screamed as loud as I could "
SAAANNNNTTTAAAA CCCCCUUUPPPP III NNNNEEEDDD SSSSAAANNNTTTAAA HHHAATTTSSS !"
No reaction at all just but some people were offering me
free "Henry Hand of God Shirts" but it was the time to
change my strategy so I ran away and my last hope was the
Carrefour !
God Bless I found a Christmas section and indeed
a few hats. I approached the young girl dressed as a Chinese
Santa and ordered 150 Santa Hats but she said these 10 were
the last pieces "Mei you" she screamed, what you mean "mei
you" ? This is for the Santa Cup and this is the Carrefour
right get me the bloody hats right now !! It seemed to work
as suddenly from all kind of secret places she found me the
"Hats" and although I was a bit embarrassed at the cashier
as they were scanning Hat by Hat so there was this hugh line
of angry Chinese people behind me wondering what was going
on with the Hats...!
Talking about the weather it started to rain exactly at 8 o
clock on Saturday evening and  this is the worst case
scenario for an organizer as how the hell you know when it
will stop. Just imagine we had to cancel the tournament and
I was stuck with 150 Santa Hats.......! I woke up three
times during the night and to my horror it was still
raining. Where the hell was Santa to help me out here, just
imagine all the angry SPL players when I had to tell them it
was cancelled while they came all the way from Puxi !
So when I opened the curtains on Sunday morning it was grey,
cold and drizzling and horrible weather and suddenly at that
moment "I Got The Message" from above that this is "The
Santa Cup", if you love the game of football and if you love
the SPL you show up always there is nothing which will stop
you !
So it happened that we had we had a fantastic tournament
with some teams showing up with all their members like the
Flamenkos (21 players !!), Galacticos (18 players), ERS and
Super 48 (full squads)
That was impressive and the fact that during the whole day
we had no serious injuries or red cards and the fact that
all the time players would shake hands after fouls against
their opponents as they knew its was dangerous on the wet
pitch and nobody had an intention to hurt each other.

So maybe that's what Christmas is all about accepting each
other as friend no matter what the circumstances are. So in
that sense I think the Santa Cup is special and we will
continue to organizing it no matter how many "Santa Hats" we
need to buy in the end. !

This year the Hawks won the Cup again but it was a penalty
shoot out against the Galacticos after the final ended in a
1-1 draw. The Party at the New Latina Restaurant at Lui Jia
Zui after the final only reconfirmed that our spirits were
high on that bloody cold day in December !

We wish everybody a Merry Christmas and Healthy/Happy New
Year on behalf of the SPL Committee ! Cheers / Freek /
Frederik / Yamamda-san !! 

First of: if you haven't done so yet, better check your schedule for the Santa Cup in the article below this one...

We had fairly good weather this weekend and for some teams it was already round 7 of the season !

Dulwich – Super 48 5-0 
Unfortunately we got a late call on Saturday that Super 48 was not able to field a team. Ps keep in mind that this is not good for the opponent who had been looking forward to play a competitive game on Sunday and now suddenly had no game…..!

Lions – Bulls 4-2
Fair game with a fair result. The bulls were trailing and couldn’t close the gap despite their hard efforts. The lions were capitalizing on a few defensive errors of the Bulls and continued their unbeaten run this season 7 games 21 points !

Hawks – Japan 1-2
Top game of our League interesting to see that Japan had only one team this time and it prooved to be all their youngsters. No wonder this was a midfield battle and the pace was fast. First half ended in a 1-1 draw but the second half Japan had most of the possession. A quick taken free-kick surprised the Hawks goalie Buffon who was still busy organizing the Chinese Wall in front of the goal, prooved to be deadly as it gave Japan all three points !


The weather outlook for this coming Sunday is good with clear skies and 12 degrees ! We have three interesting games on the menu so please come out and support your teams !

11.00 Bulls – Japan
I am sure the Bulls want to catch up with the leaders so nothing better than a win over Japan !

13.00 ERS – Galacticos
Both teams need points to get out of the bottom, expect a lot of goals !

15.00 Dulwich – Flamenkos
I can bet you that this will NOT be 0-0 !

Enjoy the SPL Games / Enjoy your life / Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee

PS : check your schedule for the Santa Cup in the article below...

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

Last year we had the highest SPL Cup draw in the world. So it was not easy to find an original way of doing the draw, but we thought the best way was to do it far away from Shanghai . After 14 hours of flight I ended up in Indore in the middle of India . I was looking for players and referees, but all I could find were cricket players and umpires so that didn’t work out. For the draw I got the cooperation of very friendly people, like the “banana” man, the “cow farmer”, the “lucky taxi driver number” man, the “flower lady”, the “horse” man, the “wedding band” and the “priest", he gave his final blessing to the Santa Cup 2009.

The Santa Cup is getting its second edition with 10 teams battling it out in a freezing cold Shanghai . The idea is that the Santa Cup is “Ice Cold but good Spirited” The friendship among our teams will make sure it’s a day of fun and entertaining games at the Greencity Dulwich Fields on December the 13th. After the Final there will be a party for all the participants in the new Latina outlet in Lu Jia Zhui and this is The Occasion to wish every body a fantastic Christmas Holiday and Happy and Sportive New Year !

Santa here we come !! / Cheers Freek SPL President / on behalf of the SPL Committee !

For the results of the draw, check the file below!
(I suggest you click 'view in full screen')

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

After the horrific weather of last week we were treated with perfect weather on Sunday ! It was a great weekend and some nerve wrecking results !

Dulwich – Super 48 6-0 
Think both teams were happy with the result. Dulwich to keep a clean sheet and Super bringing down the score every week. Hopefully this will lead to their first points soon !

Lions – Hawks 3-2
Absolute a big game for both teams. There was a massive crowd of bookmakers around the field and it seemed there was some serious betting going on. The Lions took an early lead but the Hawks equalized quickly through their top scorer Romilson. The Hawks were unlucky to concede an own goal in a fairly even game. The second half the Lions decide to sit it out but the Hawks pressure appeared to be too big with one goal and another header right on the cross bar. However a rare goal of the SPL president……who came on as a substitute in last 5 minutes gave all three points to the Lions !

Galacticos – Flamenkos 6-5 
This will be a historic game of the SPL which all people who were there will not forget anymore ! Mama Mia not for the faint hearted……Flamenkos started strong and took a comfortable 0-2 lead however they forgot to add more goals and Glacticos well known for their fighting spirit came back to a for them comfortable 4-2 lead. This itself was already a joy to watch but wait a moment 5 minutes before the end of this game the score was 4-4 !

In the 88th minute galacticos surely thought they scored the winner 5-4, but one minute later the Flamenkos equalized which they thought would give them a point, nothing more than the truth was that the Galacticos got a penalty awarded in the sizzling heat of the game in the 90th minute only to find Ned Kelly to take all the glory for their team 6-5. It is said that Ned has been missing ever since celebrating this historic game!

After the game both teams gave a hearty round of applause to each other. Because for all of us - winners or unfortunate losers - it was a real joy to be in this game. And this sportsmanship and love of the game is at the heart of our SPL.


This weekend we have another BIG game so pls come out and watch the games. Please also take note that according to the rules of the school there are no dogs allowed on the Soccer Field. Would like to thank the Captains for the league fee arrangements all was set and done !

11.00 Dulwich – Super 48 
They played each other last week so lets see which team will do better !

13.00 Lions  - Bulls
Always an attractive game with lots of goals bcs of the attacking football of both sides !

15.00 Japan – Hawks 
The BIG game as both teams need to catch up with the Lions who are 6 points clear right now !

Hope to see you all this Sunday / Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee !