Lineup GAS:

Zafer, Johannes, Marcus, Rino, Sascha (Florian), Heiko, Cyrill, Kerim, Chris (Volker), Mathias (Phil), Michael (Mike)

A cool breeze (must have been one of the coolest days in a long time), some drizzling and a pitch in decent condition set the stage for a game which turned out to be one to remember.

After last week's disappointing game versus the Vikings we vowed to show a different attitude in this game and get something going in an always interesting encounter with the Eidgenossen!

We were aware of their strong offensive line-up and so we suited up for a tough and physical duel. With the crucial (defensive) mistakes from last week still fresh on our minds we pretty much knew what we needed to show to be more successful against the Swiss.

And besides that our big "Karneval Party" was on later that night and we sure wanted to have something to celebrate.

Our line-up looked solid with Bosporus Cat Zafer back in goal, Marcus Beckenbauer as last man and Rino Ruetli and Johannes Metzelder as man markers. In front of them we had Kerim Frings and Heiko Jeremies to close down center midfield and Sascha Ballack and Cyrill Barnetta to deliver pressure on the wings.

Mathias Overath, Chris Kopfballungeheuer and Michael Littbarski formed our offense.

Since we had conceded goals within the first 5 minutes in all of our recent games our emphasis was to keep a clean sheet for as long as possible. But apparently, despite trying our best we could only last for 3 minutes before it happened again (prematurely - always a disappointing thing to happen as some of us may know!):

A sharp Swiss corner was cleared out of the box but only to land in front of a Swiss midfielder who volleyed it in for a spectacular goal. So here we were again trailing after way too short of a period! And the German sloppiness continued. Too many easy turnovers and bad defending contributed to an obvious Swiss domination in the first 15 minutes of the game. But then almost out of the blue GAS managed to equalize on a nice connection between Michael and Chris which our Kopfballungeheuer finished with a precise header from short range. The Swiss kept up their pressure though and continued to lead the way. Interesting battles were going on, especially between what must have been the youngest player on the pitch - the Swiss striker - and the oldest - former Swiss now German Allstar Rino Ruetli. While Rino managed to keep the upper hand for the most part, his opponent got away on one occasion and scored for the Swiss 2-1 lead.

Soon after, Michael delivered a nice offensive run and fired a shot which landed in the back of the net for the equalizer.

This goal seemed to be the wake up call and Initialzuendung for the Germans! All of a sudden, the midfield stepped up and won crucial challenges which were quickly converted into chances. This Swiss - GAS game had two key periods with the first one taking place then. For about 10 minutes GAS won literally every single tackle and scored three times:

Roughly two minutes after Michael's equalizer, Heiko conquered the ball deep inside German territory and delivered a beautiful pass right through the middle to Sascha who had taken off on the left wing. The Walz aus der Pfalz outpowered two defenders and fired a shot at goal which proved to be too strong for the goalie - 3-2 it was! It was all Germans now and the raid went on. The Swiss seemed paralyzed and shocked - even more so when GAS scored the 4^th goal just moments after the third. The German midfield managed to grab the ball yet again and made a quick transition to offense with a nice connection between Sascha, Michael and Chris who went all the way to make it 4-2.

Swiss came back with another goal shortly before halftime making it a close game again.

Recapping the first 45 minutes and looking at the "eyebrow rising" score at halftime it was obvious to everybody that this game was far from being over.

We knew we had to score again to bring this game home as the Swiss were ever-threatening and ready to score any time.

And that's exactly what we did. Only a few minutes into the second half GAS had another corner and scored the all-important 5-3. The ball came in sharp and somehow "landed" near Marcus. But in order to process it, he had to make some "Verrenkungen" and doing so successfully he managed to hit the ball in a Fallrueckzieher style but without the "fall" part.

This goal trigged the second crucial phase (see above) which saw the Germans pulling away by another two goals. The most remarkable one was a shot by Heiko who whacked one from some 25 meters out. Brachialer Sonntagsschuss would be the correct German terminology!

The Germans were rolling and Chris scored his 3^rd goal of the day only minutes later after a nice deep pass by Mathias. 7-3 seemed like a comfortable lead, but there were 30 minutes left on the clock and we have already seen horses puke!

Swiss brought on some fresh legs who all showed determination to get back into the game. So the tension remained high (at least on the GAS sideline), especially when the Swiss scored their 4^th goal. And another 20 minutes to go..

Fortunately, GAS responded quickly with Michael re-establishing the 4-goal lead with another one of his fine runs. So 8-4 it was and that proved to be too high of a lead for the Swiss to come back. They definitely tried everything, but thanks to Zafer who made a couple of great saves they only scored one more time about 3 minutes before the final whistle.

Quite a game we saw there and a score that speaks for itself. Great attacking and rather sloppy defending on either side allowed this goalfest - both sides will be sure to emphasize on defense in the games to come - Tag der offenen Tuer is usually only once a year (and Urs is right in saying that 5 goals should actually be enough to bring it home)

Anyways, all in all a very intense and physical game that was decided in midfield.

GAS had two strong periods of about 15 minutes each in which we out powered the Swiss midfield and defense and simply scored more often than they did.

Thanks to the Swiss for a well-fought and fair game!

Man of the Match honors go to Heiko who was the defensive leader in midfield. On top of that he set up the important 3^rd goal with a great pass and whacked one away himself.

He had been struggling lately, but returned as strong as ever just in time for this game. Keep it up, Junge!