Shanghai Premier League

Another win and we're now locked solidly in 3rd spot!

Flamenkos started of in their best whirlwind fashion.
Before long we scored 1-0. And 10 minutes into the game, Hans headed a corner back into the pack and one of our guys (couldn't make out who, really) ran the ball in the goal. 2-0.
What with the wind in our favor and the play going only one way, we thought we were set for another big day.

But as we know after 1302, you're never really done with ze French.
Their tall forward was a real trouble for our defense. Within the course of another 10 minutes he forced his way through our wall twice and scored as many times.

Not much later they had a great run on the left side. A cross followed and our stand-in goalie (thanks for the brave offer, Kurt) made a rather unsuccessful (aka he went under the ball) sortie and the ERS could score another header in the open goal.

From 2-0 up to 2-3 down.
But we never let our heads down and before the break we equalized.
We should have been up actually, as Unai was handed a brilliant assist and he brilliantly managed the impossible to kick the ball wide over...

History was written in the second half...
Danny entered the field as our goalie! The return of Senor Hollebeke on the pitch after an absence of - what was it? 2 or 3 years?
But by know we are used to comebacks of the great Belgium athletes. Kim Clijsters' and Thia Hellebaut's excuse for quitting was pregnancy... of course now all of us wonder what was Danny's excuse?

Bringing in Danny gave Kurt the opportunity to beef up our defense.
And that was much needed. For the first 15 minutes of the second half we were severely battered. Both by the ERS and the wind.

On a skirmish we did score, but the goal was ruled out, because of some alleged pushing of the ERS goal keeper.

But then we did score the 4-3, I think it was Pedro?, and it liberated us.

A little later Angel dribbled the complete ERS defense to smithereens and finished. Not much later he did the same and handed out a good assist, which was unfortunately not converted.

Then again Angel cutting his way left and right through the heart of ERS. But his try was stopped by their goalie. Lucky enough Javi had followed up and he netted the rebound.

Maybe the most beautiful goal of all was made by Thomas. Our guys penetrated on the left side, lots of people in the box. There came the cross... and here's Thomas taking a one-time volley to drive the ball in the net. Nice... wish you were there to have seen that!

With 5 minutes to go we were 7-3 up and took the foot of the gas.
ERS tried to get us nervous and they did get one goal back.

But the final score remained 7-4.
A well earned victory in a nice game (no cards!), that's the joy of playing in SPL...

We are still unbeaten in the league this year!

After upsetting the lions a few weeks back, we this time helped them by keeping Japan in check.

As a matter of fact, we were quite unfortunate. We hit the post several times. We should have won.

I hope this doesn't haunt us later on.
Let's just focus and win all our upcoming game and see if that's enough to clench the third spot this season.

Hey teacher, leave those kids alone!
We don't need no education...
Certainly not in soccer. At least not this year...

But perhaps MJ's Thriller would have been a better description of the game.

Yours faithful was not there to report, so feel free to add your comments to complete the details.

From what I gather, half time result was 4-5 in our favor and after the break each team managed to add just one goal.

This puts us a bit more firm in 3rd place, our goal for this season.
But we'll have to win all our remaining games to keep Hawks at bay.
For they are lagging 4 points on us, but we played 2 more games than they have.

Alex added 2 goals to his tally, but he's still only 5 goals clear of the second in the top scorer list. So go net some more, I'd say!

Sunday was a bad day for Belgian sport fans.
And it wasn't much better for Spanish either.

Tom Booned got himself annihilated by a super strong Cancellara. The Swiss rocket arrived 2 minutes ahead of the rest of the pack at the Velodrome in Roubaix. A third place for Spanish rider Flecha was little consolation.

And our Flamenko boys did not fare much better.

We knew we were playing with fire when we beat the Lions - perhaps out of the title race - a few weeks back. Perhaps we should have saved this feat for the cup semi-final.

For now the ferocious beasts came out in full force... And we looked like a weakened pack of Zebra's, missing Angel, Alex, Jose, Gerd, to name just a few.

But let's be honest about this, when you step on a Lion's tail, you will get bitten. We just didn't expect to be torn apart.

Flamenkos started out well enough, though.
The game went up and down for a good 20 minutes.
But then the lions set up an attack on the left, our defense lost focus and their forward was left wide open just outside the area. He even had the time to control the pass and hit the ball out of reach of our goalie.

5 minutes after it was a similar situation, this time a rush on the right side of the field, a cross to the penalty area and the same alpha-lion was too strong for Hans. He came in front, touched the ball and 2-0.

Before long the count was 3-0, when Alex was unlucky on a try from the Lions that bounced of his hands and went into the goal. Nope, Sunday was definitely not the happiest day of our Goal keeper's life.

Then we got one back. On a rare corner, the ball landed in a scramble and our agile Brian managed to squeeze himself between all players and divert the ball into the goal.

Not much after though, it was 4-1. Same story after the break, 5-1, 6-1, 8-1. Yep, much like Boonen, we were completely destroyed. But the numbers do belie the reality a bit. While cancellara on his bike looks like a well oiled machine, we did manage to not let the Lions come into their usual game play of fast passing and midfield play. Instead most of the goals were made from kick-and-rush kind of play and individual actions.

And 10 minutes before time, the tide seemed to change. We scored our well-deserved second goal. The Lions seemed a bit unnerved and their organization unraveled. In a nervous finish we had a handful of good chances, but we were not cool minded enough to finish any of them.

But all in all, even though the score may be a bit harsh, we had a good time on the pitch. Just a slight drizzle, perfect weather for a nice game.

True in form to their - partly - Spanish roots, our cuadrilla went out into the corrida like fearless toreros.






The picadores in our midfield had little trouble in outrunning our Bulls opponents, the banderilleros in our defense led their 2-horned attack away from our goal time and over again, while our matadores made no less than 6 deadly strikes.

All this bull-fighting rhetoric just to mask that yours truly actually wasn't there. 1300h is really quite a bother when you have kids who'd rather sleep at that moment of day.

So if there's someone who can give a better eye-witness account...

Historical moments for FC Flamenkos after the last minute victory against the Lions (first in the ranking till last game).
We are still unbeaten in 2010.
I want to thank all players for their cheers and hard work on the pitch.   Next week we can prove that the Flamenkos are the only right candidate for the 3rd spot in the League: let's do some cow tipping with the Bulls!
 
We aim for the top 3 in the league!

GAME details:
 
Time:
Sunday March 21 at 13.00 h
 
Venue:  
Jinqiao pitch
633 Biyun Road, Pudong (close to Carrefour, Decathlon)
 
Opponent: Bulls. Milkie Milkie Milkie Way!

Flamenkos are still unbeaten in 2010. This time the lions were tamed in a thrilling game.

Without the leader of the pack, Freek, and without their alpha Lion Michael, these kittens didn't start out all that fiercely.

They had trouble making good combinations and our midfield was able to keep them in check. Our strikers on the other hand were deadly efficient. With the lash of a whip, Sascha scored twice before the break. Both goals scored on a corner.

The second half saw these wild cats coming on a bit stronger. Our tamers got eaten a little and they managed to equal the score. Their hordes came attacking time and again, but our goalie Alex proved that he too has cat-like reflexes. But all of this was a deliberate tactic from our clever coach. Wearing them out in order to tame them once and for all.

In a crazy end of game, we got another corner and it seems our kind adversary did not learn much from the first half. Or perhaps they were targeting the wrong striker? For this time it was Jokin (if my sources are correct) and not Sascha who scored the 2-3 five minutes before the end of the game.

A nervous end saw no change in the score and after the final whistle there was much rejoicing!

We tamed the Lions!
Let's beat the rest of the circus as well!

Aaah the frustration...

Dulwich is a very physical team, that we know.
But this year they added some speed as well.

We held our own and in an even game even gained the advantage. 1-0 halfway.
But our stamina gave out and we lost some organization. Our reshuffled defense (no Kurt, no Jose) did what they could, but even our new goalie Bas could not keep Dulwich from equalising.

And then the unavoidable happened. After they had another try on the goal post and after we countered once with a high shot wide, in the very last minute they scored.

1-1 would have been more correct, for it was a very even play.
But after all, this is football!

And it goes to show that we need to continue building our team, setting a solid defense and continue to improve on a midfield that can control the game.

We'll

We had the Vlis run and again perfect weather.
So there were lots of supporters out there.
The youngest ones being the most ardent, shouting 'go Flamenkos' and toiling around with the Belgium flag...
As a sign of protest with the referees they even dislodged a corner flag... young hooligans!

Now to the game... as expected Lions would be a tough cookie to crack. And so it came to be that we were 4-0 down.
The first half was difficult, because we were looking for our organization. We managed to break out a few times, but the lions were better organized and very very efficient in the first half.
Let's face it... if you give Michael a shot, he'll take it and most likely he'll score. Question is, how do you keep this rugby player from taking a shot?

The second half was better. That's a welcome change from last season when FC VLIS was also known as 'first half team'.
We found some organization and by putting Jorge in defense, we became more aggressive.
When the goalkeeper then released the ball on a free kick of ours, again Jorge was there to storm the ball in the goal.

We were launched from that moment and kept going forward. The Lions did their part as well and had a few very good chances, but fortunately for us they lost their killer instinct and all tries landed on the post or wide.
Alex of course had to score his usual goal and thus the end result was 4-2.

Not too bad if you play the Lions.
Next up are the Hawks who trashed the Galacticos last Sunday (10-1!).
Let's face them with no fear and try to at least contain and hopefully overcome them!

See you Sunday!

Your faithful (ahem) reporter arrived at the scene only after half-time.
By then most of the game was played, so I can't add much except hearsay.
Even with Gerd having to take a health break before mid-time Flamenkos managed to take a 3-1 lead, with goals of Alex (again) and Unai.
The bulls rampaged back to 3-1.

After mid time we recovered Gerd, but Bulls regained the initiative.
Our stand-in goalie did not have a very enjoyable second half. He had to concede 2 goals. The last of which only 15 minutes before end of game, a strong long distance strike.

The last 15 minutes were then still very nervous.
We did manage to get in front of the goal a few times, but neither Yuup nor Alex could finish it.
At the other side of the pitch we in turn were threatened by a few tries of the bulls, but our keeper prevented worse.

I have only seen one half of the game, but I saw a big improvement from last game. With Hans and Kurt in charge of defense, our midfield could come into play a little more and our offense got more passes.

Plus, this time the opponent did not have over 50 substitutes.

In conclusion we played a good game, things are looking up.

Next are the lions on October 25.
This is as usual a top game, so bring friends, bring family, bring all support our players can use!