But what is more important than this one point: we have managed to incorporate a series of new players into the team who, together with the rest of the players, are skilful enough to play some nice football.

Short balls already from our defence meant that we were able to build up some confidence. Most of the long balls we played found their target, apart from a few particularly wild ones towards the end of the match. And one long cross by our Dutch part time student and “nice-weather-open-roof-driver”, Frank Boers, arguably one of the classiest balls ever-played in Everberg, found Andy Hodgson who had the skills and calmness to score the well deserved equalizer.

Before that we had already controlled the game well by playing aggressively and supporting each other well. John McGrath organized the defence made mainly of new players, Carsten Schierenbeck, Massimo Guarnaccia and Kirk Wehby, all quick, calm on the ball and aggressive. Especially Kirk who was close to the first yellow card for our team. We are happy to have him with us and to finally fill the empty space of the “North American villain playing for the 2nds”, which Dennis Hamilton left a few years ago.

One the few errors in defence, together with a lot of help from midfield, led to the 2:1 for the opponents. Getting organized before a corner, McGrath had told Carsten to take care of a Chenois player. McGrath was not aware that he had just asked two of our players to mark the Chenois guy. That must have created some confusion between the two Carstens who got in each other’s way and let the guy score an easy goal.

There was no time to equalize before half time, but with the help of some new players – Madsen had suffered another injury during the first half – we continued to play organized football and scored the well-deserved second goal. It was again Hodgson who was quick enough to use the confusion created in the opponents’ penalty area and score his second goal. Not only did he score the equalizer. He also made sure that he got an unbeatable amount of votes for the MoM and be granted the honour to buy us a drink.

After our second goal there were still some chances on both sides but in the end everybody was quite satisfied with the draw.

After the first two league games it seems fair to say that the team is on its way. What we need now, are a few points to make it to the top of the league table and a pair of decent Adidas football shoes with moulded studs for those who had the guts to turn up with astro-turf shoes in Everberg.

MOM: Andy Hodgson