Match Review: Hibernians FC vs German-Swiss All Stars

• DF Nick Edwards
• DF Joe Poulton
• MD Andrew Knott
• ST Daniel Martin
• -- Alex Titmarsh
• -- Roger Milburn
• -- Alexander Danielson
• -- Peter Talbot
• -- Rupert Roberts
• --
• -- Colin Gray

• -- Andrew Talbot
• -- Andy Clark
• -- Luke Liperis

Performance into Points

The Hibs have been under new management since the start of the year. It’s a three man team, but really Nick does all the football stuff. Buffy picks up the kit and fills in the team sheet. I forget the drinks and attend club committee meetings to report on our results. At the last meeting I had to tell them that we did not achieve our goal of winning the league this season. So Nick is under pressure and sounded like it before this game, begging us to turn our “good performances” into points. He also told Andrew that we had tricked him when we said he would only have to do 20 minutes. Andrew, with his sniffles, was starting, and doing 90 minutes, and if he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses the look might have burned a hole in Nick’s handsome face. For all that, it was a pretty good day for us. Little Talbot opened the scoring from a Rupert cross. Big Talbot takes all the credit though, for refusing to allow LT to stay at home and work. Alex was also worked in our goal but we felt like had the run of the play until the moment just before half time when the Germans shot themselves in the foot – one of their players getting a red for some contact with the linesman. The second half started like it was 11 on 10, but we missed a few chances. I probably had the clearest, after Andrew’s pass across the box, but couldn’t get it out my feet and ended up passing it to an offside LT. Then we did that whole performance-not-into-points thing. Bastian battled through a couple of challenges on their right wing and went down in the box with Rupert sliding in. Rupert was adamant there was no contact, but there’s every chance he was just trying to save face with his girlfriend watching him from the bench furthest away from Buffy. GAS converted the pen. This time though, we sorted ourselves out. We took back the lead when Joey’s ball over the top for LT was nodded out by the GAS defender into my path. Buffy told me afterwards that he really liked my finish, which made me feel pretty special. Big Talbot came on, refused to play on the right side of the front three, tried to change the formation. That required a reshuffle, with Clarkypoos coming on to play where Talbot wouldn’t. Lippy came on at right back, where he was electric going forwards but had a few other shortcomings that meant he had to swap with LT. Nick coped with all of this impressively, which will be reported back to the committee, along with news that we are top of the fair play league. Ben sealed the game near the end, when we were still threatening to do something silly. He chipped the keeper from just outside the box, capping a really good debut. He was our MoM, although LT and Tits were also excellent, and Andrew did ok considering he’d brought an MC from his doctor. MoM for the Germans was Bastian.

• Steffen Schacher DF
• Takahiro Kawabata DF
• Quirin Regensburger MD
• Alex Zuegel --
• Juergen Stich --
• Fumiaki OGURO --
• Jan Wiechmann --
• Bastian Wolff --
• Michael Klemm --
• Florian Gädke --
• Thommy Lim --

• Marius Teich DF
• Mauricio Roa ST
• Per-Ola Roest --
• Teo Premto --

No points at PSA

The game after 3 weeks break against Hibs started at 5pm at PSA. GAS had a solid squad thanks to some key players coming back from injury or travel. GAS started the game with high intensity, collected the ball in the central and could use the pitch wider in the first 20 minutes. However, we lacked the accuracy and idea in the final third, which have been our biggest problem and led to the team with the least goals in this season. Hibs got used to the pace gradually and made use of their first chance by long ball. The first goal was by Hibs. GAS tried to bounce back by pushing attacking players and cutting through behind the line, but the crucial moment came before half-time. The referee gave red card to our central mid, Not many players saw what happened but it seemed he held the assistant referee. GAS was forced to play with 10 men for the remaining over 50 minutes. In the second half, GAS changed their tactics to 3-4-2. Three central backs focused on defence and cleared the ball to forward. All players covered the space very well and it didn't take much time to level. Hibs defender committed a foul in penalty area and our skipper scored from the spot and cerebrated his comeback. 1-1 to GAS. GAS tried to come from behind for victory like last time we faced against Hibs, but Hibs defence was very solid and they scored two goals in the last 10 minutes after GAS players got tired. 3-1 to Hibs. The rough bout continued even after final whistle and left an unpleasant aftertaste. Our keeper was sent off finally. It was unlucky for GAS and it could happen several times in a long season. What we have to do is moving on to the next game and aiming to win all the remaining games with full effort.