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 !