Sejersen, Christensen-Rice-Rossi, Pellegry-Guarnaccia (Giunti)-Henriquez (Charvet)-Thuan, De Lima-Somers-Stanojevic

Another unusually warm day and the Vets1 players all in time (even Massi) for the game against a bottom half team. As the greyhairs were coming into the opposition in large numbers, our optimism regarding the final score was growing stronger and stronger.

Captain Lolo was absent (justified!) and Cian read the game plan from his phone, just in case, so that all the blame for benching and eventual bad tactics undoubtedly rests with Lolo. Cian’s phone has shared the following starting 11, in our standard 3-5-2 formation, with us:

Tommy in goal, Cian sweeper (yes, you read it well), Lars and Emma next to him on each side. Pellegry on the left (surprise, surprise), JC on the right, Massi and Horace in the engine room. Finally, the attacking trio of Peet (roaming all over the place actually, but his designated position was 10) and standard duo up front, Jelly belly Milos and why-don’t-you-pass-me-the-ball Marcelinho. On the bench JB and Totti. Dams was getting another clean sheet on the goal of the 2nds and Max was helping the Vets2.

The game started quite slowly from our side, even though it was clear we are a much younger and better team. The first sleepy 15 mins didn’t bring anything worth mentioning, except a few usual wonderings of JC around the pitch that made us all wonder which position he plays on. Somehow, Pete took this as a sign that there is no system in our game and started copying the approach of JC causing havoc for both teams on the right flank of our attack.

Then, a couple of nice passes on the left saw Pellegry breaking down the line and putting the cross straight on Pete’s foot on the opposite side of the box: 1-0. We continued a bit legere, and struggled to get more goals in. There was no real danger towards our goal and the legend says Tommy was playing his Gameboy for the most of the match, but no concrete evidence can be provided for that claim. A few minutes before half-time, we managed to stop one of their attempts to do something with the ball and Emma did an amazing cross from 35-40 meters straight to Milos right foot at about 10m from the goal, a solid half-volley in the upper right-corner: 2-0. Soon after that, the half-time whistle was there.

Horace and Massi were soon off the pitch, the latter being late for a date where there was less clarity of the final outcome. JB and Totti were in, where JB went to his usual right side and Totti in the middle of the park, where JC joined him, ending his wandering first half on the right side.

Second half brought quite a different ball-game, which was not expected, as the first half was somehow pretty calm and there was no possibility in sight that Tourinnois can break Tommy’s game of Super Mario. The whole team started to be more aggressive and trying to score as many goals as possible. There were couple of good attacks and after a corner Massi tried a header, hit a defender in the stomach, Milos was there to take the present and make it 3-0.

After that goal our opponents (especially the keeper) seemed a bit demotivated and soon Pellegry passed by the right back like a TGV and found lone Milos in the box: 4-0. In about 45sec, Peter did the same on the right side, again with the same ending, Milos 5-0. For the 6th goal we had to wait a bit longer, but not too much. Pete made one of his well-known hi-risk-for-his-body dribbles and put the ball in space, Milos was faster than a guy that could easily be his dad, and that was in the bottom right corner, 6-0.

There were a lot of chances, and we didn’t put them all in, but the mood was still good. Totti and JC killed any glimpse of potential attacks for Tourinnois from the middle, so the ball was mostly in our possession. At this point it is worth mentioning that JB’s role in the second half was of tremendous importance, as the result of the second half clearly shows. During the second half, once the result was already decided, Cian tried to be a box-to-box sweeper-striker and almost pulled it off on a few occasions. Emma and Lars stuck to their usual another-day-in-the-office routine, doing their job properly without trying similar escapades, unlike Cian.

After another Pellegrian escapade down the left Pete was rude enough to enter the 5m box and tap in the 7th goal. He was forgiven. Finally, a few minutes before the end, a nice ball in the middle by JB, Milos passes it on the Marcelo, who didn’t have a lot of space, and of course that is why he scored: 8-0.

Soon, the final whistle and beers waiting in the changing room. Nice celebration after the game where the jelly belly MoM offered a round of beers for another job well done by the jolly boys. At the end of the evening, even nicer news of a draw between the 2 top teams made our Saturday even better!

See you next week for some Pharma-time!