_Amigo’s and Amiga’s,
 
The good thing about the SPL players is that they all love soccer. Whenever you organize a soccer event you are sure they will come. The Santa Cup 2011 saw 12 teams with players from all over the world battling for the glory. Each team played 8 games on the day and at the end were split in two groups of 6.
 
The Plate Group was fighting for the 30 Liter Free Beer kindly provided by the Shanghai Rugby and Football Club. It was a close race as the Hawks almost got it but fell short by one point only! Japan won it with 13 points out of 5 games god bless they had a team bus driving them back!
 
Final ranking Keg Cup :
1) Japan
2) Hawks
3) Galacticos
4) Super 48
5) Super Japan
6) Flamenkos
 
The Santa Cup Group’s winner was decided in the final game. It became an interesting story perfectly put into scenario by Steve the manager of the Hard Days Night. Friday before the start of the Santa Cup he was spreading around emails that he hardly had a team and on the day of the Cup he claimed half of his team was stuck in Puxi and asked for postponement. Meanwhile Mus the oldest Lion around was snatched as goalie after paying him an undefined amount of money. So the final result they played 8 games and conceded only one goal (a penalty) with only 8 players and became the Santa Cup winners 2011! Great story and well done to them !
 
Final ranking Santa Cup :
1) Hard Days Night
2) Sino Ball
3) Lions
4) ERS
5) Pistolera Bulls
6) Cowboys
 
Now its time to say goodbye to 2011 and we don’t do that before we say a big THANK YOU to all the people who have made 2011 a roaring success for the SPL!
 
-        The players / You are the SPL !
-        The referees every week they are performing / Lots of respect !
-        Kevin / Most passionate referee I ever met !
-        The Captains and Team managers / Without whom there is no SPL !
-        The Grassmaster Adam and his team / Brilliant pitches !
-        Dulwich School / Football loving school best facilities in Shanghai !
-        Green City / Great place for foreigners to feel at home in Shanghai
-        Shanghai Rugby and Football Club /  We are happy to play there !
-        Golden Bridge Company / Great supporter of the SPL !
-        Latina / Perfect host for end of the season Parties !
-        Wives and Girl Friends / For letting us play on Sundays !
-        Yamada-san / For keeping the scores and making the schedule !
-        Frederik / For being the creator and master of the SPL website !
 
We hope we can keep our SPL Spirit Strong in 2012 and wish everybody a healthy and prosperous 2012 !
 
See you all next year ! Cheers Freek SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee !

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

We leave the Christmas Speech for later but last Sunday we played our last SPL League games of 2011. This year was a great SPL year! Looking back we played 15570 minutes of Competitive Football and were incident free. Every 30 minutes you can expect a goal in the SPL and actually the goal scoring ratio is up sharply from 3.01 per game last season to 3.98 this season. You can debate whether the attackers got stronger or the defenders got weaker but I believe that our consensus is that we like to play attacking football no matter who the opponent is. To be honest I don’t remember any goal-less draw in the last several years!

Japan – Lions 0-2
Lions looked a bit frightened early in the morning as they counted 34 Japanese players on the Pitch! On top they received the usual “you don’t want to receive that kind of text message on Sunday Morning” messages from players not coming due to back problems and intestine problems. So it was 13 vs 34! Japan started more aggressive as the Lions tried to keep their energy for later. A free kick not cleared by the Japanese gave the Lions a 1-0 lead. In the second half your President shot a corner straight in the top corner. You can call it luck or vision but it was just what was needed to stop the Japanese invasion.

Etoille Rouge – Cowboys 3-1
Our French Friends clearly improved this season! Fantastic new shirts and a good team spirit they are going for it. Currently third in the SPL ranking. The Cowboys told me that they are targeting the Santa Cup as their first SPL trophee!

Pistolera Bulls – Galacticos 7-4
Nils from the Bulls showed why he is an SPL top scorer contender as I guess he scored the fastest SPL goal: 7 seconds from kick-off a 45 meter strike! For the Galacticos being in the bottom will give them as well something positive as it can only get better from here! The fact that they scored 4 goals will give them hope and confidence for 2012! Stoyan showed his “old” skills by scoring four goals for the Bulls. We as well take this opportunity to say goodbye to an old friend Xavier a Pistolera Bull player who has been playing in the SPL since the early days! He will pursue his career outside China now and we wish him all the best!
( We will miss his late tackles….!)

Hard Days Night – Flamenkos 3-3
Great game for the spectators. Hard Days Night players couldn’t get started they blamed it on a Christmas Party the night before and soon they were 2-0 losing. The Flamenkos after their poor start of the season decided to go into the transfer market and on top of their list was a new goalie. Well they found one! Gonzalo III on his debut he became “Man of the Match”  Great to see such a talented player perform.  Hard Days Night could only score by penalties and they got two to equalize 2-2. Flamenkos thought they had scored the winner but 4 minutes before the end guess what…..yes another penalty! Handball 3-3 and the end of a great SPL Game.

Next up will be the SPL SANTA CUP this Sunday December 18th 12 teams will battle it out. Come and watch the action at the Waigaoqiao Rugby and Football Club kick off 1030 until 1600 followed by BBQ Buffet and Beer + Price Ceremony.

If you see some crazy people running behind a ball with Santa Hats on their heads it must be the SANTA CUP !

Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee !  

Here's the Santa Cup schedule! (click on it for a bigger image)

Amigo's and Amiga's,

Round 8 is behind us and one more SPL League Round and we can put 2011 in the History Books. Of course we will not finish the year without a Bang !
Santa was kind enough to do the draw for the third Santa Cup on a busy Nanjing Road. 12 teams will battle it out on December the 18th at the great facility of Waigaoqiao's Shanghai Rugby and Football Club. We hope for snow and stormy weather to add the atmosphere ! Cannot wait to see the action !

Ever wondered what referees are writing down in their booklet's ?
Here you go we got a peak WIKI Leak SPL Spy Cam insight of Kevin's notes during the Galacticos - Japan game. Lets call it a piece of art ! Any bidders ?

We as SPL are supporting the Chinese Football Association by bringing in young referees / linesmen/ladies and give them experience in our league before they will go to the professional leagues. Great idea ! Left is Leo and right is Cherry !

Believe it or not but our Vice President good old Yamada-san claimed he scored a goal ! His last goal was in 1872 so you can understand his state of happiness !

Cowboys - Pistolera Bulls 1-12
Bilgin was all smiles as after last week defeat versus the Lions he could claim that always when he is absent the Bulls lose and when he is there they win. Poor Cowboys this week as there was no "guanxi" but "mei guanxi". Nils netted 4 and is climbing on the topscorers chart !

Etoille Rouge - Hawks 0-1
Very competitive and even game with both teams trying to claim the mid-field. ERS was better in the first half but failed to finish it off. In the 85th minute disaster struck for them as a ball ended via the post through several players in the net. For the Hawks you can conclude that that is the way top teams win their games most of the times in the last minutes......!

Super 48 - Hard Days Night 1-6
You can conclude that Hard Days Night have had a succesfull recruitment strategy as two of their new comers Dave and Fedja keep on scoring goals. Hope that super 48 will get their fighting spirit back and win the Santa Cup !

Galacticos - Japan 2-6
The Japanese Captain looked rather upset when the Galacticos players were not on time but what can you do when the subway suddenly stopped in between two stations and you are on your way to Waigaoqiao! In the end Kevin with the CFA officials could start the game.
Galacticos under the leadership of Danielle stood up well against the two Japanese teams 0-1 first half but in the second half there were just too many Japanese too handle and Japan secured a badly needed win !

Capitano's please make it clear to your players that without Shin Pads you CANNOT play. Especially new players need to be informed about that so that it doesn’t interrupt the game all the time. As well please note that at all time smoking is not allowed at the field as this is a school field and we need to set examples to the children !

Last round of 2011 ahead of us this Sunday so come and watch the action at the field next the Dulwich School !

1030-1230 Japan - Lions

1230-1430 Cowboys - E. Rouge

1430-1630 Galacticos - Pistolera Bulls

1400-1600 Hard Days Night - Flamenkos at Waigaoqiao

Don’t miss the action of the most entertaining league in Shanghai the SPL !

Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee

If you want to know who'll be playing who in our annual Santa Cup, then check the video below!
The first one is on Youku (if you happen to be in China).
The second one is on youtube (but it's the same movie...)