FC. Saint-Michel B

Ladies 3 were back to the pitch this Saturday, continuing with their match marathon, after having just played on Wed night.

The team didn’t let a previous elastic result against St Mich influence their attitude toward the match, and everyone entered the pitch very focused. It soon became clear that this St Michel squad was very different from that of the game played back in Dec. They were reinforced by 4 players from their P1 team and were playing good football, although not truly creating chances to score. The FCI ladies knew they had to be cautious, but didn’t let that intimidate them and were not afraid to pass the ball all around the pitch, all the way from the defense, through the middle to the attack.

Around minute 15, the referee signaled a foul close to the box of the Ireland ladies. The usual wall formation soap-opera started, and even if at the end a wall was assembled, it was not enough to protect the short FCI keeper from a very good high shot from the St Michel player that sealed the 0x1. The ladies in green were not afraid to be behind on the scoreboard and started a push for scoring their goal. There was pressure but no goals….Mathias then decided to pull his secrete weapon from the bench, to try and put some poison on the attack – and it worked out – Francesca “angel wings” wanted to prove that her place is flying at high-speed on the right flank of the pitch and ran to terrorize St Mich’s defensive lines. When it seemed that the first half was going to end without changes on the score, Fra managed to get us a corner. As usual, Sarah took it, and special invitee Nicole put her head on the ball for the 1×1. It was the perfect moment as it allowed us to immediately after going to the break with a draw.

The second half started with the same impetus from the Irish side. As in a deja-vu, the scene of the first goal repeated twice more. Francesca made runs that got us corners; on the first one Sarah again crossed a precise ball, this time to Francesca, so she could score with a beautiful header. Later, on yet another corner, Sarah decided to take things into her own hands and scored an amazing Olympic goal (no matter what the ref says on the match sheet).

The St Michel ladies never gave up. But the Irish resistance line, led by “Chief of Defense” Flavia (back from a long absence) made sure nothing went through them. On top of the remarkable defensive work, the ladies were also making sure they were bringing the balls up with some nice passing. We tried to keep the pressure high, especially when St Mich had goal kicks, until the end of the match. The final result was 3×1, which brings us one little step closer to the top 5 objective.