Shanghai Premier League

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 ! 

Amigo’s and Amiga’s,

Well what a difference one week can make ! One Sunday we play in the heat and next Sunday we play in the storm and freezing cold but whatever it is the games are all played in high spirit ! We are back to three games per Sunday as after five o’clock its dark in Green City !

ERS – Lions 1-3 
The Lions started really bad and were lucky that the damage was not bigger than 1-0. However the scoring opportunities started to appear for the Lions and after a few misses in front of an open goal the Lions scored thru Charles twice in five minutes. Two good saves from Nicolas the Lions keeper and a second half goal from Jeff was enough to give the Lions the three points.

Dulwich – Bulls 2-1
Typical SPL game with open and attacking football a few words left and right, good refereeing by Kevin and a few cards. First half the business was done already but the second half was interesting to watch as the Bulls had to push forward. They got their reward 5 minutes before time when Kevin saw a foul which most of the people didn’t see and pointed at the penalty spot ! Aydin who has scored more goals in his life than Ronaldo and Kaka together, stood up to tie the game but the penalty was stopped by the outstanding Argentine Goalkeeper Max of Dulwich. It left Bilgin fuming but when the Bulls fume you better watch out !

Hawks – Super 48 9-1 
There was some confusion about the final score as Andrea lost count or fell asleep. He counted 7 goals whereas the referee reported 9 goals ! Good to see improvement for Super 48 as the counter stopped below 10 if they continue this trend of “every week one goal less conceded”  they will tie a game soon !

This Sunday it will be cold but with a blue sky which is always nice to see in Shanghai !

11.00 AM Super 48 – Dulwich
Lets see whether Super 48 can reduce the damage or even get some points this time !

13.00 PM Hawks – Lions
For football fans this is the game to watch. Both teams are strong this season and are possible champion contenders !

15.00 Galacticos – Flamenkos 
The Galacticos will look for their first win this season and the Flamenkos want to proof that their victory over the Hawks wasn’t a one off win !

Enjoy the games and the cool weather ! See you all on Sunday / Cheers Freek / SPL President on behalf of the SPL Committee !

Amiga’s and Amigo’s,

We experienced a massive drop of temperatures in Shanghai last Sunday and especially Monday from 27 degrees down to 12. However the cold front from the North didn’t stop the SPL teams from scoring goals as scoring goals is what they are good at. I have spend this weekend in Jeju island with my parents and when you are away on a Sunday you start to realize how much you miss the smell of grass, having fun with your friends, scoring goals, shouting at referees and having a beer after the game !

Lions – Super 48 10-0 
I got a call from the guard at 7.30 AM that there was an invasion of Japanese players at the gate and they asked me what was going on ! Super 48 tried their best but unfortunately this time they couldn’t score a goal. Lions only had eleven players on the pitch as Halloween the night before took its toll on their team !

Bulls-E-Rouge 1-1
I can quote Kevin the excellent referee from England his comment on the game. “fairly even game which was reflected in the final score”  There was a bit of diving going on but Kevin was not impressed, he referred to culprits to the Beijing Olympics !

Japan – Dulwich 4-1 
Dulwich took the early lead which is not bad against Japan but according to some insiders the wind in the second half turned into a typhoon and the Dulwich defense was simply overblown by Japan .

Hawks – Flamenkos 3-4
The surprise result of the weekend. Flamenkos would argue that it was normal for them but on the other hand it was not normal for the Hawks to find them trailing 0-3 at half time. Second half was a battle of life and death and the Hawks came all the way back to 3-3. However Alex the quick Spanish striker scored his fourth goal of the game which give the Flamenkos the three points and Alex a phone call from Liverpool coach Benitez !

This weekend we will have no games because a lot of players will try their luck in Manila at the Nomad Tournament / Hopefully a Shanghai team can win this time, but usually it’s the home team who wins the Cup because the don’t go out and party anyway we wish everybody good luck and “safe” travel and “safe” s……!

Weather prediction sofar is calling for a blue sky but cold temperatures 6 degrees ! We reduced the games to three per Sunday due to the Winter kicking in so please note the different starting times !


11.00 AM Lions – E-Rouge 
The French will remember their sweet victory over the Lions last season, but hopefully for the Lions there will be no dead Lion picture on ERS webpage !


13.00 PM Bulls – Dulwich 
I can guarantee a lot of goals !


15.00 PM Hawks – Super 48 
Goals, goals,goals !

Stay Fit during the Break ! Cheers Freek SPL President / on behalf of the SPL Committee !