Not a great game, but the 2nd team played well enough to also win this 2nd game of the season.

First home game of the season on our familiar Rosieres grass pitch at our familiar 15.30 kick-off slot. We had to make a few changes to our line-up compared to the week before, as Marcello suffered a back injury and Miguel broke a rib (get well soon guys!). We started with Luke in goal (as Filippo had to play for the 1sts), Lars-Gabi-Volker-Cedric in the back, Enric-Clivio-Alper-Ivaylo on the midfield, Timme-Mark up front, Guy-Gael-Jamie on the bench. Opponent Les Requins lost their first match with 2-0, and we were poised to send them home with another defeat!

We were the better side from the start, even though we didn’t play that well. Quite sloppy actually. Still we had enough quality in our side to make the difference. Escpecially newcomer Ivaylo, who played with the 1st team the week before, had a good game. No surprise therefore that he scored our 1st goal. Cedric gave a cross from the left side, Mark tried to control it in the box, couldn’t hold on to it, but Ivaylo was there to pick it up and shoot the ball behind the goalie: 1-0. Timme and Mark had a few chances during the 1st half as well, but were unlucky with their finishes. We still scored the 2-0 before half time though; it was again Ivaylo, this time making a run on the left side of the pitch and shooting the ball in the far right corner: a great finish!

2-0 at half time. Coach Griff was not completely happy though, we were not playing to the best of our ability. He asked for more composure and calmness on the ball. 2 swaps were made: Guy came on for Timme and Gael for Enric. The 2nd half went quite similar to the 1st one: RBBFC was the better team but failed to dominate the match. We didn’t get into trouble though, and missed a few good chances (Ivaylo had 2 chances to complete his hattrick, Clivio made a clever lob, and Alper saw his shot being blocked). It stayed 2-0 and we could add another 3 points to our total.

We didn’t play great, but that can happen. We did what we had to do though and won the game. Very professionally done!

MoM: no suprise: Ivaylo. Very quick on the wing, good control of the ball, and scored 2 great goals. Welcome to the team!

A special thanks to Jamie for making himself available as back-up goalie! As a reward he got to play 5 minutes as striker and even managed to make a few Bergkamp-like moves in that little time! :-)