BX. Brussels B

Saturday evening, minus one degree and a frozen pitch. Tough conditions for our ladies 2, nevertheless everyone was full off energy and determined to win this time! This evening we are facing the ladies of Bx Brussels, a team that is (and after this game, ‘was’) on the position below us in the ranking. We defeated them before and we will do it again! After missing the win last week, an intense training session on Monday followed by a tactical team-talk on Thursday, each of our ladies knew exactly what was expected from them.

The game started 20min late, which helped us to be very warmed up. From the first minute we came out strong, our solid defense line consisting of Sarah M, Ebba, Fanni and Marianne didn’t let a ball go through. The confidence on the ball and great passing of Rebbi, Pri and AJ in the midfield together with Lily and Fra on the wings, fast as always, allowed us to play very high, which made it difficult for Bx Brussels to create chances. After 20min a foul by Bx Brussels gave us a free kick, which our striker Parker beautifully finished inside the net, 1-0 for Fc Irlande! This advantage gave our ladies the power to continue playing their great game: defending strongly, building up through the midfield and creating several chances. The few balls that reached our goal were nothing our Goalie Mariana couldn’t handle. Before the end of the first half the coaches decided to play our full bench: Ade as left back and Sarah K, Sephora and Eli in attack to give the team some extra energy! Unfortunately the good goalkeeping of the opponent didn’t let us score a second time in this first half!

Start of the second half, our moto is to stay strong and focused in order to keep owning the game as we did the first half. Unfortunately, as happened to us before, the opponent took advantage of our ladies ‘getting into the game’ again, and scored their first goal, 1-1. Time to play serious again and take back control! Which we did! After this mistake the ball possession was again mainly at our feet, playing high up creating many chances. Those chances gave us a corner, Pri, at the right spot at the right time, managed to score our second goal!! High on energy we continued the game, frequent changes of players were made to keep everyone playing at 100%. Again a dangerous attack from our ladies, which forced the goalkeeper to tackle Sephora, who took a hard fall on the icy field which resulted in a penalty. Full of confidence Parker took the shot, with this powerful shot the goalkeeper didn’t have a chance, straight in the net – GOAL! 3-1. 15mins to go, let’s go for another one! We kept creating chances, but no luck with putting the ball in the net, until another
corner would decide the final score. This time Pri and Fra decided to team up and score together, not sure who put the ball over the line, both of them were determined to get the ball in! 4-1 would be the final score as our ladies kept defending solid till the whistle, what a game! Proud ladies and proud coaches, time to celebrate the jump to 9th in the league!