Match Review: Hotspurs FC vs German-Swiss All Stars

• GK Martyn U'ren
• DF Tom Hine
• DF James Keane
• MD Joshua Donavan
• MD Lionel Kong
• MD Ali Roseburgh
• ST Thomas Greene
• -- Ng Zhiwei
• -- Gaetan Boehringer
• -- Patrick Sheriff
• -- Mark Hadlow

• ST Nick Kouvaritakis
• -- Daniel Krzystek
• -- Jonathan Drape-Comyn

At last!

Hotspurs went in to Saturdays match with a full squad optimistic of getting our first win of the season. Hotspurs started strongly, having the lions share of possession and building from back to front. Mid way through the first half, left back James Keane made a marauding run to get in behind the Germans back line and met an inch perfect though ball from JD, dispatched into the bottom left corner, 1-0 Hotspurs. The match continued in similar fashion with Hotspurs controlling the tempo and against the run of play, a counter attack after a Hotspurs free kick resulted in a cut back goal. Both sides even at 1-1 going into half time. Early into the 2nd half Hotspurs rung the changes and Nick K came up with a Tony Yeboah esque finish in off the bar after a multiple pass move from GK Martyn through the lines for Tom Hine to assist. Germans fought well and caused problems until Daniel K got in behind to slot home in the dying embers of the match. Germans put up a good fight, Hotspurs throughly deserving their first win of the season with a solid all round display.

• Florent Caupin GK
• Takahiro Kawabata DF
• Alex Baesel DF
• Hamza Ben Naceur Gharfane MD
• Diyar Mailepessov ST
• Bastian Wolff --
• Jan Wiechmann --
• Mark Leonhardt --
• Bastian Keller --
• Florian Gädke --
• Mishel Knezovic --

• Laurent Brutsch DF
• Marius Teich DF
• Anthony Wilson ST
• Ronny Morack --

Black day for GSAS

The disappointing performance began already before the match when majority of the players plus the trainer only arrived <15 min prior to kickoff at the pitch. Far away from a proper match preparation, the consequences could be seen from the very beginning. Even though disciplined in the defense with every single Hotspurs pass in our half being successfully intervened, we were unable to create our own game with lack of movement without ball, missing passion and team spirit. As a result, after ~30min the first situation where we did not only do a terrible job in ball possession but also slept in the defense leading to 1:0 after brutally efficient conversion by the Hotspurs Striker. Slightly woken up, but far away from expected performance we created some chances and after good effort by Basti W on the right passing to Di who served Mitch with a wonderful cross, Mitch brought us back in the game (at least that's what we thought...). Halftime 1:1. Motivational halftime speeches, however, didn't help to improve our play and after some confusion in our defense Hotspurs striker snitched the ball and finished terrifically with a shot under the crossbar, 0 chance for Florent. Match continued as before with the only difference that we started playing slightly more offensively (still shitty passing, losing the balls in unnecessary tackles and lack of movement) which opened the space for Hotspurs counterattacks. They converted one of those in the 90 minute marking the final score 3:1. In contrast to us, Hotspurs won as they were playing as a team. Congratulations for that and thanks for a fair match (apart from #4 who might wanna rethink his vocabulary on the pitch). Good luck for the rest of the season!