Swiss Re vs Olympique Emil Frey: 5-5
Place, Date & Time: Adliswil, 09.07.2024, 20:45
Weather: 25°C, clear sky, pink sunset, Romantic like Dave loves them
Starting Eleven: Classic 4-2-3-1
Goals: Souley (4), Antonio (1)
On this nice summer night, FCSR was facing a new opponent: The Olympique Emil Frey. It is important to note that this team was built for this game and consequently had no prior experience together. Nonetheless, as you'll see in the following report, they gave us the challenge we've been struggling to find in our last games.
The game started off well. Emil Frey was dominated like a submissive Marco in one of his 18+ parties. A combination of high pressing and quick transitions prevented an opponent, which was still looking for its marks, to breath. After a few situations, it enabled FCSR to score on a counterattack with a well-dosed pass in the space from Claudio to Souley behind the defence (1-0).
After an encouraging start, FCSR fell into it's usual shortcoming and downplayed its efforts and intensity, giving more freedom to the opponent.
Being comfortable allowed Emil Frey to gain confidence and penetrate our defence like Elio penetrates Langstrasse on a lonely night: quickly, efficiently but discretely. They ended up scoring with a nice freekick to the poor Tomas, who is probably still jumping to get the ball as you read this report (1-1).
Still under shock, FCSR conceded a second goal not long after due to the passivity of our defence, composed of the Djokovic of Ouagadougou (Cheikh), Tony Soprano (Michele), and Taylor Swift (Luca), which had forgotten that the social distancing rules do not apply anymore (1-2). On the bright side, The Lichtenstein Wall (Samuel) confirmed his great form of the last few weeks by holding our left defence like a fort.
Shortly after, the referee gave a penalty to FCSR after an Emil Frey player got a little too intimate with Souley during a corner kick, like if he wanted to take him to a certain bar to spend all his money. Penalty converted by Antonio, who surprisingly had not attempted to nutmeg anybody yet (2-2). The same Antonio combined with Serge on the left side of the opponent's box, then delivered a cross to Endrit, alone on the other side and 7 meters from the goal, but he unfortunately decided that it would be a cool thing to murder a horse on a Monday night in the nearby farm.
A few substitutions provoked the disorganisation of the block. Add to this a bit of a panic and a "Hello Kitty" defence and Emil Frey scored twice (2-4).
It's halftime and the whole team is looking desperate. Luca suggested the repositioning of Domi in order to stabilize our defence, which will prove to be of great help.
The break was helpful as the team restarted with much better intentions, initiating a fierce pressing on the car dealers. It finally paid off when their defence misjudged the trajectory of a long ball, which allowed Souley to convert a 1vs1 against the keeper (3-4).
The reinsurer was dominating and created successive opportunities despite having lost Endrit, who was temporarily sent off by the Referee for protesting. Maybe if he was not caressing the ball 20 times like if it was Dua Lipa…
On one of their rare incursions, Emil Frey obtained a penalty (5-3). As the sky was getting darker, so were the hopes of FCSR to come back. But sometimes the light comes from the most unusual places, in this case it came from Endrit's right foot. He finally did what his very existence was made for: give the ball to Souley (4-5).
A few minutes left and FCSR keeps pushing. On a long ball in the opponent's box, Souley got fouled and converted the penalty (5-5).
We are still haunted by the same demons but the defeat has been avoided, thanks to our character!