BSV Oranke – FSV Hansa 07 4:3 ( 0:3 )

Author: Eric Vissers

There is no shame in losing a game we absolutely dominated for the first 45 minutes. There is no shame in watching the hosts use only kick-and-run football as their only plan. There is no shame in watching amazing “Sunday goals” being conceded from unexpected positions. No shame at all.

And I do not hold any grudges against the football gods, the sunny weather, the small field, the quite intimidating ghetto atmosphere created by the crowd.

Again, I hold no shame.

What I do think is a shame, is the manner in which we collapsed in the second half; one line after the other. It was more predictable than the weather. It’s a shame that it does not really matter anymore who scored in which order for us. Was it Fred, Mamadou and then Michel? It does not really matter does it?

What really matters is that we lacked that freshness from the first half, that fighting appetite, that hunger to win the ball. It seemed that we forgot how to play after the break. We forgot to communicate in the right manner. We dropped to the opponent’s level, playing long balls, losing balls and not passing to our teammate when we should have. We did not close down early enough. Spread the game wide enough. We stood too high. And we didn’t have enough fit players on the field. I could actually vomit a list of failures during that match. But I’d rather not.

One thing is clear; the team needs to regroup again.

I do not even want to start emphasizing the importance of attending training sessions.

I really hope this is just a once off, a small warning that our focus need to be reset and that we see the second half has finally kicked off.

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