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Hachioji Park, Sat 27th Jan. France FC wanted to put an end to its losing streak (with 8 goals conceded in the last 2 games). There was some great expectations as we were putting out one of our strongest line up this season. Only problem was, we happen to face BFC, top in the league, which had just beaten the Hibs 3-0 one week before
And as the game started, BFC proved to deserve this ranking. With their recruitment over the past months, BFC ends with a much more balanced team, solid defensive roots in both defense and midfield, and a very skilled offensive quatuor, who are used to play together. In the first 15 minutes, the worst was to be feared as BFC was controlling the ball and managed on a few occasions to overpass French defense, with crosses looking for Al Himmer's header (in a Liverpool style of play)
After this initial storm, Gildas started to take control of the defense and the boys would no longer be endangered...thanks to William, then Pedro and Trent who blocked the sides perfectly with good presence and tackles. Martin, for his part, didn't let much space to Al for the rest of the game, while Haru and Nori recovered lots of 50-50 balls in the midfield.
The consequence for this great defensive performance was that Francois had not much to do. (Indeed, beside a shot on the bar in 2nd half, BFC would only have a single shot on target for the whole game!) Still, Francois, in this unusual GK function for him, kept concentrated,
and was decisive when he cleared the ball out of the box on a well shot corner kick in the last minute of the game. On the front side, France FC spent a lot of energy trying to score a goal.
As it took one half for our fantasy player, Nacer, to wake up, the chances came first from individual initiatives. Zelmar superbly dribbled in the middle of the British defense but his shot was well blocked by the GK. Then, Haru delivered a 40 meters free-kick, something more like a scud than a shot...which smashed the cross bar. Unlucky ! Finally, Etsushi could have added one to his legendary goals in TML (and BFC conceded a few of them) when he tried an impossible overheadkick...Beautiful try, but the ball went high in the air...
In second half, with Nacer back in track, and despite losing players one after the other for all kind of injuries, we were controlling the midfield. The speed of Taka, Dai, Haru and Etsushi was taking over tired BFC players. In the last 10 minutes, the house of BFC was on fire, and it took at least the feet (and sometimes hands) of 2 defenders to stop Etsushi whenever he approached the box. Nacer was delighting the crowd (mostly YCAC players preparing for their clash with Saitama Jets). One of his masterpiece's nutmeg litterally shutted off James Morson who was insulting French players on the side just one minute before ! Lovely...
Unfortunately we couldn't score the precious one. That's a bit of a disappointment as we could have definitely won this game and grabbed 2 more much valued points, but we can be happy with the overall performance of the team...In the end we drew with the 1st team in the league, a team we are lagging 15 points behind (still with 3 games more to be played for us)...Let's continue this way.
A "special dedicace" to YB who earned a new cap "en bleu" with a clean sheet for his 30 seconds on the pitch...and to the referee, for his rather fair performance...However, surprisingly (?) BFC complained about the referee in their match report...It's true, to their defence, this referee didn't give them any PK, nor did he send off any French player...How disgraceful !
Nico B
Report by Nico B
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