A light snow cover lay on the surface of the pitch on Monday night when the game against beloved Grüne Tulpe kicked off at 19:15. The light cold temperatures reflected this 90 minutes game, which has been present in the midfield most of the time but when we or the opponent managed to get close to the goal, the last effort to perform a precise pass or shot on target was missing. Crosses landed wide without a receiver, corners landed on the opponent heads and shots went wide or even looked more like a clearance. But the build up play was at least on our side a good side note, calmly and with the addition of smart thinking made us not losing the ball too often compared to usual games on this level. Mostly we were missing the last touch up front when we came close to the Tulpe goal. Two shots against the post and the safe hands of their goalie kept the clean sheet so long. A minute left to play in the first half one of our defenders did not find a suitable person to pass to, at the edge of the box he got pressed by the Tulpe striker and lost the ball. The open cross towards the middle found no one at first, we defended with all men but a cleared low ball landed on a Tulpe foot who shot towards goal and the ball deflects off Martin’s foot and changed the direction which made it hard to reach for Marian in our goal to catch it. He touched it but from the post it went across the line, unluckily.
Undeserved (in our opinion) we headed back to the center line, kicked off and played the last minute of the half. Stefan (desperate to find someone to play to) looked up and just fired a 20-25 meter rocket towards the right corner of the Tulpe goal, which could be saved by the goalie but bounced off his hands and Hans quickly reacted for the 1-1. A five minutes break was set up and we continued the second 45 minutes, drove more dangerous attacks via the wings and centre, but no one of wanted to try a distance shot so we tried the usual “carry the ball into the goal” tactic. Daniel had a big chance then when a cross from Hans landed on his foot at the long post but he his tragedy was hitting only the post from short distance. Tulpe gained some chances, tried the long shots but they were not on target.
After all a more or less fair (from the effort view) 1-1 draw, we try to to better against these lads next time! Next game on Sunday 28th January against TSC Berlin!