Match Review: Gaelic Lions FC vs FC Nippon

• GK Derek Saw Wen Yu
• DF Paddy Bourke
• DF Hans Van Den Hoogen
• DF Wilfried Lapierre
• MD Mikey Peace
• MD Shane Ryan
• MD Daniel To
• MD Jack Reid
• ST Darragh Burke
• ST Daire Flanagan
• ST Ronan O Boyle

• DF Jack Maton
• MD Stephen Swords
• MD Petesy O'Brien
• ST Sean Flanagan

Ended up being quite a feisty affair on Friday night against Nippon. They went down to 10 men in the first half through an unfortunate handball from their keeper. However, they countered very well thoughout, and a simple ball over the top caught our lads out with their striker finishing well to take a 1-0 lead at the break. We didn't play our best football and started getting frustrated! Nippon caught us out again to double their lead and started to defend even deeper. The centre half for Nippon was brilliant throughout! We continued to press and changed things around and managed to crawl back into the game through Sean finishing off a scappy chance. We levelled shortly after through a corner from Jack, great header from Shane! Could have won it but wasn't to be. Nippon played the game perfectly with 10 men, we were getting annoyed by the delaying tactics but we would have done the exact same in your position so fair play. Credit to officials who kept things calm at the end too and made sure nothing boiled over.

• Koichi YOSHIIZUMI GK
• Akihiro HORI DF
• Tatsumi Kitamoto DF
• Yuki Ichikawa DF
• Enrique Sanchez MD
• Seiji TACHIBANA MD
• Takuto Furuya MD
• Ryosuke Matsui MD
• Ryuhei IKEDA MD
• Takuya Hagino ST
• Daiki Ishino ST

• Akira Yokoyama MD
• Rishi Ravikmar ST
• Hiroki Saito ST
• Kodai Ochi ST

Another tough Friday game

Due to many absences, NIPPON started took on the Gaelic Lions with a slightly unusual shape. We lost our keeper in the first 15min because of an unfortunate case, that forced the blues to fight with 10 men for the rest of the match. Nevertheless, the Japanese showed excellent team work throughout the game and actually led it until the very last minute, thanks to Takuto who scored in the first half and Hagi who scored in the Kate second half. The Gaelic showed their strength, height and pride and managed to equalise towards end of the game and the result was 2-2. Well done to both teams!