Well, that was that for another season: TSV Handschuhsheim can pretty well write off their chances of being promoted to a higher division. Again.
We seem to have a habit of doing this. We start out the season alright, knock the weaker teams about a bit, but struggle a bit again the mid-table teams. In the mid-season break we pull ourselves together, and come out fighting. We knock the weaker teams around again, and manage (usually) to beat the mid-table teams as well. Then comes Dossenheim. Freaking Dossenheim. As the team closest to us both geographically and in terms of skill, the match is the local derby of the Kreisklasse C. They deliberately bring only a blue kit when that's our home colour, and we.. well, usually we don't do much. We're too nice, our coach says. This year it was going to be different, we thought.
We usually play a 4-4-2 system with diamond and flat back four, but because Dossenheim needed to win more than we did, we changed our tactics: though we still lined up with a 4-4-2, we actually played 3-4-2-1 with man-marking and two defensive midfielders. The plan was to hold back and force them to come at us, while we blockaded the midfield and robbed them of space and time. We would then counterattack (at home, no less) over the wings, but the key element was to keep a clean sheet for as long as possible. Once they started getting tired and annoyed, that's when we'd strike.
Everything went swimmingly until about the 60th minute: our goalkeeper gathered the ball at the edge of our penalty box and attempted a clearance. I say 'attempted', because he managed to hit one of our defenders in the back; the ball fell to Dossenheim, and with the goalie so far off his line they had no problem converting. Even then it wasn't over. We came at them now, pushing them back into their own half and exerting constant pressure. They were tired, and we worked them over the flanks relentlessly, but just couldn't find a way into the centre. A header we were convinced was over the line wasn't given, and the match ended 0:1.
We're now 4 points behind 3rd place, and 5 points behind Dossenheim in 2nd place (the second placed team enters the playoff for promotion), with two matches left to play. The 3rd placed team have two reasonably tough matches, but it's exceedingly unlikely that Dossenheim will slip up twice. Once again, Dossenheim was our stumbling block; and while it wasn't as embarrassing as last year, it's still really annoying to lose to a stupid goal like that. But when we look back at the season, we should probably be more annoyed at the cheap points we lost in draws with the mid-table teams whom we, quite frankly, outclass.
Well, that's football. We grew as a team, but a little too late. Here's hoping next season will be better!
We seem to have a habit of doing this. We start out the season alright, knock the weaker teams about a bit, but struggle a bit again the mid-table teams. In the mid-season break we pull ourselves together, and come out fighting. We knock the weaker teams around again, and manage (usually) to beat the mid-table teams as well. Then comes Dossenheim. Freaking Dossenheim. As the team closest to us both geographically and in terms of skill, the match is the local derby of the Kreisklasse C. They deliberately bring only a blue kit when that's our home colour, and we.. well, usually we don't do much. We're too nice, our coach says. This year it was going to be different, we thought.
We usually play a 4-4-2 system with diamond and flat back four, but because Dossenheim needed to win more than we did, we changed our tactics: though we still lined up with a 4-4-2, we actually played 3-4-2-1 with man-marking and two defensive midfielders. The plan was to hold back and force them to come at us, while we blockaded the midfield and robbed them of space and time. We would then counterattack (at home, no less) over the wings, but the key element was to keep a clean sheet for as long as possible. Once they started getting tired and annoyed, that's when we'd strike.
Everything went swimmingly until about the 60th minute: our goalkeeper gathered the ball at the edge of our penalty box and attempted a clearance. I say 'attempted', because he managed to hit one of our defenders in the back; the ball fell to Dossenheim, and with the goalie so far off his line they had no problem converting. Even then it wasn't over. We came at them now, pushing them back into their own half and exerting constant pressure. They were tired, and we worked them over the flanks relentlessly, but just couldn't find a way into the centre. A header we were convinced was over the line wasn't given, and the match ended 0:1.
We're now 4 points behind 3rd place, and 5 points behind Dossenheim in 2nd place (the second placed team enters the playoff for promotion), with two matches left to play. The 3rd placed team have two reasonably tough matches, but it's exceedingly unlikely that Dossenheim will slip up twice. Once again, Dossenheim was our stumbling block; and while it wasn't as embarrassing as last year, it's still really annoying to lose to a stupid goal like that. But when we look back at the season, we should probably be more annoyed at the cheap points we lost in draws with the mid-table teams whom we, quite frankly, outclass.
Well, that's football. We grew as a team, but a little too late. Here's hoping next season will be better!
No comments:
Post a Comment