Okay, so the match last Sunday really deserves more than I posted in my last entry, so I’ll try to give a bit of a summary. Not that it will do the match justice in any way, but it’s better than nothing .

Either way, we played against the second team of the Dijk, who were ranked at the very bottom of the league with 0 points out of 8 matches or so (we had 8). Normally this would be an easy win, but not this day. They fielded several players from the first team, including three players who recently played in the second highest amateur division (I think that would be about 8 divisions higher than we currently play).

During the first half we kind of hacked their tactic by kicking long balls behind their defensive line, and scoring easy goals. Hence, after 30 minutes we were 4-0 ahead. Of course, they were flabberghasted, and profoundly pissed off. Their coach substituted in several stars from their first team, bringing the total of first team players at the Dijk to 9. Meanwhile, we were forced to substitute one of our defenders for a goalie. Halfway the second half, one of our players even got a red card and we had to finish with 10 men.

You might wonder what on earth happened then after those 30 minutes. Well, here’s an approximate statistical summary:
- 3 balls hit the bar.
- 3 balls hit the post.
- 2 balls were taken off the goal line by defenders.
- 1 goal was made in off-side position, and got cancelled.
- 1 free kick goal (hard shot in the upper left) got cancelled, because it should have been an indirect free kick.
- I got +/- 5 one-on-one situations.
- I got 2 two vs. one situations (I think, could have been more..).
- I got approximately 15 distant shots on goal.
- I got approximately 5 close-range shots on goal.
- I got approximately 7 crosses.
- I got 4 free kicks in close range.
and in the end.. I conceded exactly four goals .

I had an obvious good day and an obvious shitload of luck, but we afterwards we were all absolutely delighted with stealing this point!

And then, today I checked the knvb.nl website to find out that the Dijk has completely withdrawn from the competition. This is very favorable for us, because we will lose only this one point, while most of our competitors defeated their second team earlier in the season, and therefore lose 3 points.

Apparently the Dijk found it so depressing to not win with their first team against a second team that they called it quits altogether. Needless to say, I’m quite sure that this will greatly boost the morale of our team .

After not having played in the second team since november 2007, I was allowed to play the second half today again. Things started out rather chaotic, as apparently my player’s pass (which is required to participate in a match) was still with the guys from the fifth team :s. After a hasty trip to the Waterlooplein to pick it up I was still in time to play the second half. In the end we won 2-0, and we played rather decent today. I had some minor flaws (goal kicks going straight down the center rather than on the sides mainly), but overall I’m happy with the match. Perhaps this season will go a bit more smoothly than the last one .

In other news, Sanne celebrated her birthday yesterday, which was great fun . We had a nice meal at the tapa’s bar and plundered most of the Polish wodka at home afterwards .