F.C. Hölderlin Rechtfertige » Ordnungsgemässe » Heile

A difficult match in highly windy conditions, where we were under pressure in first half due to having the wind against us, ended well after all. The first half ended goalless even though we had Bernie sent off as we forgot to tell him to report to the referee when he entered the pitch for the first time.

"Fodbold Bulldogs" -- I think they should probably adjust either name or attitude, perhaps a bit of both, as what we met today was more like "Fodbold Gentlemen." Even while some were constantly shouting for attitude and offensive play, I don't think they committed a single foul in 2 × 30 minutes. So it was a calm, almost friendly, match, played in a good atmosphere today, in sunny Kløvermarken.

Both teams had just one substitute, with our own lineup featuring Alessio on the goal, Bernie, Carmine, Massimo, and yours truly on the back row, and Allan, Manuel, and Paulo up front.

I hope I'm not offending anybody by stating that the play wasn't particularly good by either team. Lots of not-quite-good passes, and lots of lost possessions by untimely charging into defenders. The exception would be Alesssio, who had great match, and who pulled out a real TV class dive-save in the 2nd half. Not caught on film, unfortunately. Nothing was. :(

One goal was scored in the 1st half, as Carmine got free to face the oncoming goal-keeper, dropping a beautiful lob into the empty goal.

Tactics were discussed in the break, and something must have gone wrong, as the Bulldogs equalized on their very first offensive, after about 30 secs. That was a bit of a shake, and luckily it didn't take us long to get back in the game, and in the lead, as Allan made a classic turn-around to screen off a defender, and then hammering in the 2-1 from standing position. One nice shot.

The 3-1 goal was a bit of a mess, as Massimo squeezed off a shot from about a 1°, aka "impossible," angle. I think it hit the goal post, and maybe the back of the goalkeeper, before getting caught between the legs of a defender, stumbling on the goal line, and accidentally pushing the ball just across the line. Way to go Max!

My first comment to Bernie when I saw the team that would turn out to be our opponents: "I hope we're not gonna meet those guys!". FC Hot Shot was a team of asian youngsters in their 20s or so.

We started out against the sun, against the wind and against the current #1 on our home turf, Kløvermarken. There was not a lot of time for tactics, so I tried to be short and precise: "You saw the CL semi-finals between Chelsea and Barcelona? Today we're Chelsea!"

Alessio took the goal, Mikael, Bernie and Max was in defense, Allan and Paulo midfield, and Juan as striker. On the bench: Simon, Mikkel and Ronni who arrived just in time for Kick-off.

FC Hot Shot started out as expected, full speed ahead, with a lot of fast passes and running. We fought back, and kept the Hot Shots from chances by hard work on all positions.

The first half was tough, the Hot Shots seemed eager to score fast, but our solid defense kept them from doing so. On the other end of the pitch, we were getting closer and closer to some real chances.

Holderlin vs FC Hotshot, 3-1: "10"

We used the substitutes well, Simon took center defense, Ronni striker, and Mikkel changed with the midfield players.

At half time, it was still 0-0 and we agreed that we could definitely play these guys. Now the sun and the wind was behind us, and the Hot Shots didn't seem that hot anymore. They were getting tired.

Experienced as we are (!) we still had energy to move forward. We played these guys well from the defense up, but also with some long passes for the strikers to work with.

Some 15 minutes into the 2nd half, Ronni got at great pass from Mikael and completely outplaced their goalie on his left side. 1-0! Great work in the build up to this goal, and good offensive (can you say that??) work by Mikael. Ronni had some chances to score before it finally went in, so he owed one ;-)

Our next goal was almost a replica of the first - a great pass from Mikael to Ronni, who this time passed their goalie in the right side of the goal.

Our 3rd goal (oh yes!) I remember as a build up including Paulo that made a great pass to Ronni, but somehow Mikael was involved in this goal also! How ever, Ronni scored his hattrick goal from a very acute angle from the left of the goal.

At this time only 5-6 minutes remained and the Hot Shots got a single goal, just because we felt a little sorry for them (actually it was a pretty solid goal - a hard shot from a distance leaving Alessio chanceless).

Near the end, the ref. made a mistake, and gave Allan the yellow card for a tackle. I was closer to the incident than the ref. and I saw Allan hit the ball first, so big mistake. Otherwise the ref. was pretty fair although he let the Hot Shots get away with a lot of pushing!

Thanks to everybody for really fighting and playing so well! Thumbs up to Alessio for (almost) keeping the goal clean. Great and hard work by the defense! Good passing and a lot of chances especially in the 2nd half, where our team also got to know each other a little better :-)

Mikkello

Second match af the season was played against 'Menerfirs', who were leading the group after a 4–1 in the first round.

We were on our "home" artificial turf, a half-of-an-11-aside pitch in Kløvermarken. Frank-Frank on the goal, Carmine, Massimo, Bernie, and yours truly maintaining a 3-man defence-line (due to the over-wide pitch proportions), Nissen, Mikael, Allan, and MIkkel on the midfield, and Fritzbøger on top.

Disciplined play, and few open chances to either side in the first half. They got the first goal but it didn't take us long to hit back, Nissen intercepting a pass near the middle of the pitch and running towards the goalie and passing it to Fritzbøger who was next to the post when he put it in. He did say before the match that he felt that he had goal(s) in his boots :)

Once more the match was tight for quite a while, when Menerfirs made it 2-1 on a high pass from their right which passed several players before one of theirs kicked it in with the side of his leg or foot. We didn't falter and it only took slightly longer to equalise this time around: Carmine took a shot from outside the penalty area, the goalie put his hands on but Nissen quickly got the rebound and made it 2-2.

The squad: (back row) Carmine, Bernie, Nissen, Mikkel, Allan, Frank-Frank,
(front row) Mikael, Massimo, Ole, Fritzbøger, and
(behind the camera) one single spectator

Årets første kamp stod i køligt, klart forårsvejr på en ny kunstgræsbane i Valby. Modstanderen var Giovani Calcio, men vi var stadig holdet med det største italienske islæt, selv om vi kun havde een italiener med: Andrea var på gæstevisit fra sin brasilianske træningslejr. De startede bedst uden at komme til det helt store og blev hurtigt rystede, da vi kom til de første chancer. Halvlegen igennem var det en lige kamp, med en af de bedste chancer til Sebastian, der udfordrede målmanden med et flot hovedstød efter et hjørne.

Valby, last match of 2011

The boys sure look good in red, don't they?

And yes, those are the true colors, with lighting provided by this magnificent October sky:

Valby skies: nice colors, though not very helpful for the game

I think we could benefit from some intelligent player analysis and team counselling like this:

Gruppe B
Italien
Danmark
Tjekkiet
Bulgarien
Armenien
Malta

(tak for linket, Sebastian)