4-1 Win vs Mallorca

When we're good we're very good, and today it all clicked into place. Our first game at the new San Andreu pitch proved to be a great chance for the team to show what they can do. The Mallorca players boasted to our new recruits that they were a first division team and had 9 points so far (albeit against weaker opposition), but i had a good feeling about this one.

The team consisted of Hugo in Goal, JKris and Terry centre halfs, Cedric and Rich as full backs. Juan moved up to left wing, Victor right wing, and the new partnership of Victor "the machine" and Tomasz in central midfield. Up front were James and Pat for his last game for the collins.

We wanted to play the ball on the ground against this team that Victor and I had watched the week before. We realised that their only strength was their ability to hold on to the ball. Our gameplan was to be very aggressive at ball winning, and to keep it simple.



The first half was a blur, with the Collins winning everything in midfield, Victor and Tomasz clicked in a way that i've never seen yet, and dominated the middle of the pitch. Terry and kris were immense at centre back, and there was only 1 threat from my memory throughout the first 45 minutes. Victor broke the deadlock after our forwards had spurned chance after chance, we were having 2-3 shots every five mintes and the vaunted 1st division team looked shaky indeed. It took a moment of magic from Victor on the right wing to kickstart it though. He cut inside and floated a lovely 25 yard lob over the keeper and into the top corner. Inch perfect, and thoroughly deserved, 1-0 collins. A few more poor finishes and we were approaching half time with a lead but one that could be taken from us with a slip. And slip we did, their striker outjumped Kris and was through on goal 1 on 1 with Hugo when Victor from nowhere sprinted 30 yards to nick the ball from his toe just as he was about to shoot. Half time, 1-0. Victor then took a headbut to the face which dropped him like a stone and caused a gash on the lip, but it could not stop him and made him even more determined.

Juan had been lucky to stay on the pitch after a string of rash challenges so he made way for Glendon at half time, and we left it 10 minutes before the Doctor was to replace Rich. Almost immediately Pat broke through the Mallorca defence and slotted cooly for 2-0. Mallorca were on the back foot nowand it was like a turkey shoot. They made multiple substitutions to try to stem the flow, and Doctor cam on for Rich. Unfortunately his first action was to bring down a striker in the box for an unnecessary penalty which they scored, 2-1.

From then on, the midfield mastery proved too much for Mallorca with Victor winning everything that came through the centre, and Cedric marauding up and down the left wing. James got through on goal and scuffed the shot, but fell on the ball. Somehow he kept control of it on the floor and passed it out for Victor coming in from the right to hammer it into the roof of the net, a deserved 3-1.

At this point Mallorca had nothing, the domination was total, and Victor (winger) was a little damaged and came off for Walther to soon earn his new nickname "Hannibal" for telling one of the Mallorca players that he was going to eat his liver......

Simon came on for James and immediately took the mantle of centre forward and started running at the defence. They just couldn't handle the renewed pressure and Pat popped up to put in a 4th.

Caj came on for the last 15 and almost made it 5 from Simon's cross but it was just behind him. Cedric ran the whole length of the pitch twice and almost scored both times, but in the end the game finished 4-1. The Mallorca manager came up to me afterwards and said it should have been 10-0. He said they were rubbish, i say we made them play rubbish. Wonderful to watch, and even better as we videoed it.

Man of the match by a unanimous verdict, Victor the Machine..... 2 weeks in a row for him as MOM and to think i thought he wouldn't be physical enough to play in central midfield.

My apologies to those of you who came to the collins to watch the video and we couldn't get the TV to work, but we had a laugh anyway. Lets try to keep this momentum going and who knows where we'll be in a few games time.....A very happy Gaffer