Forbidden City FC 紫禁城足球俱乐部

City began with a double boost , first of all Big Jim had not returned to Beijing over the summer, and secondly Ivan hadnt grown his pony tail backThis was city’s first competitive game of the season. Captain Philippe was determined for a good start – “its a new season and its critical we take this game serious” said Philippe as he staggered home from Sanlitun at 6am on Sunday morning .

Match report for Summer Palace vs Kozo Japan. IFFC Cup 2nd Round.

Played on Saturday 3rd September 2011, Side Gongyuan (Lido)

For our second game this season, we had a full squad of 18 players after new recruit Lee Russell passed a late fitness test. This was welcome as we were going to need a strong squad if we were going to beat Kozo Japan, something Summer Palace never managed to achieve in previous seasons.

As expected, Kozo was the most dangerous at the start of the game and they managed to open the scoring after about 20 minutes, when their fast forward went past our defense on the right and scored with a low shot at the far post. Fortunately, we did not lose our focus after this setback and not long before half-time Chris Lupton equalised from a header, at close range, from a Ben Roberts free-kick. The second half started as the first did, with Kozo dominating. Their domination culminating with them being awarded a penalty that Stefan brilliantly saved. This was the turning point of the game as soon after that another good corner-kick from Ben was met by Amir who volleyed the ball in the Kozo goal from close range. 2-1 for Palace with 10 minutes left on the clock. Kozo, who had only 2 subs, did not have enough energy left in them to return the situation and we managed to hold on without too much trouble.

Amir Saleh was voted Man-of-the-Match for his decisive goal as well as for doing a very good job at holding the ball up-front, and Donald Wildiers was voted Donkey for giving away the penalty that Stefan saved.

This is the best run in the cup achieved by Summer Palace in 5 seasons. Now Forbidden City awaits us for an interesting Cup ¼ final to be played later this season.

Palace,

Last saturday we had a tougher than expected game against the Dulwich Lions. I don’t know if it was because of the heat and bright sunshine but for once we had a very sluggish start.

Dulwich Lions had only 10 players to start with but it did not really show. We had more much more possession but about 15 minutes into the game it was Dulwich who managed to open the scoring as they took advantage of our static defence.

At least this setback gave us some impetus and we finally managed to put some sustained pressure on their goal. Over-optimistic long range efforts, combined with bad finishing from our strikers as well as good goal-keeping denied us for at least 25 minutes. Fortunately, Lao Cui provided his trademark goal just before the half-time whistle: he got the ball near the side line, on the left, maybe 35 metres from the goal, saw their goalkeeper off his line and took a long lobbed-shot that nicely dived into the goal. 1-1 at half time.

In the second half, despite Dulwich now playing with 11 men, we were much more dominant. Amir almost scored the goal of the season but his shot bounced back off the goal line after hitting the crossbar. Persevering was the key, and maybe just 5 minutes later, Amir finally got some rewards for his effort and scored our second goal. Shortly after that, Lao Cui got another after dribbling his way to the goal from the left side. Final score 3-1.

After the game, most of the squad went to Luga’s for some refreshments and food. Amir collected the most votes for Man-of-the-match, while myself was voted donkey for being a “brickhead”??
Cheers,
Patrick

Palace,

For the ones who were not at the match, here is the match report for the league game we played last saturday:

It all started very well, on that sunny afternoon in Chaoyang Stadium, as we could count on a full squad of 18 players as well as quite a few supporters. Unfortunately, things went pear-shape even before the the game started. The time of kick off , that had already be postponed twice, was further delayed due to the pitch being double-booked. So, after warming-up for almost 1 hour, we finally kicked off the game at 6:30pm. From the start of the game, we could see that we were not going to have it all our way this time round. Athletico, boosted by 6 or 7 good Chinese players was indeed a very much improved opposition compared with the sorry lot we trashed 8-1 in the first half of the season.

Athletico dominated the early stage of the game. Despite this, Palace were the first to find the nets. After about 10 minutes played, a good pass from Chris Lupton, gave Ally the chance to run past their defence from the left wing. He managed a low cross that eluded all Athletico defenders and keeper and that was met by Manuel who converted with a simple tap-in from 5 metres out. At that stage, Lao Cui had also a half-chance to make it 2-0 but he could only find the side of the nets.

Our lead was short-lived, however, and Athletico equalized soon after as their fast Chinese forward collected a long ball that fell behind our central defence and cooly converted. Athletico had several other good chances to score in that first half, finding a post on one occasion. One of their western players also managed to shoot above the bar while presented with an open-goal and just a few metres away from our goal-line. Having weathered the storm, we actually dominated the end of the first half and managed to score again, thanks to Ben Roberts who coming from the right wing, blasted the ball passed their keeper. 2-1 for Palace at half time, thanks to a very good goal per chance ratio and a bit of luck.

In the second half however, Athletico stepped up a gear and was dominating. They equalized early in the second half, thanks to their nippy #7 who after a “Messi-like” run through our defence and along the penalty box took a fierce shot that went just below the bar: 2-2.
In that half we did not create many (any?) clear chances to score while at the other end Athletico were often shooting from long range. Jason had to make a great save on a one of these shots, Gabriel also managed to clear the ball on our goal-line.

Maybe with the score being 2-2, our mistake then was to continue attacking in numbers leaving quite a lot of space for their fast forwards to exploit. With less than 5 minutes to go, on a fast counter-attack they found a breach on the left side of our defence, and their center-forward was left alone to collect the cross and convert the chance. 3-2 for Athletico, final score. A very dissapointing result but quite a fair result if we consider the number of scoring opportunities that both sides had.

For us, we have two games left that we must win if we want to have any chance to win the league. I’ll send the team call for next saturday game in a separate email, following this one.

Cheers,
Patrick

Sent: Monday, May 02, 2011 11:55 AM
Palace,

For the ones who were not there, here is the match report of the league game we played on saturday vs ISB Dragons.

Everything started well for Palace: all 18 players had managed to find the right venue before kick off and we also had quite a few supporters attending the match despite the windy conditions and dusty air.

In the early minutes of the game, it was quite even. The Dragons played some long balls for their fast forwards to chase and our defence had to be well-focussed to cope with them. At the other end, Ally and Ben were making good runs on the wings and our central midfielders Chris and Charles were starting to have the upper hand. Our first goal came after about 15 minutes played, with Ally sending from the left a good ball across the box, that eluded both our forwards, Manuel and Lao Cui, but fell nicely for Ben who had followed-on from the right
wing. Ben beat their diminutive, google-wearing keeper with a fierce low shot. Shortly after, Chris Lupton took his chance from long range to score a great goal and just before half-time, we were gratified by one of “Lao Cui’s special”: i.e. his trademarck shot from the sideline, on the right, that ends its course just below the bar. It may look like a missed attempt to cross the ball but we all know that he meant it as he always tries to score!

3-0 for Palace at half-time and looking good.

At the very start of the second half however, the Dragons came out first off the starting block and out-speed our defence to make it 3-1 within a few seconds of the re-start. Fortunately, we did not panic and made good use of our 7 rolling subs to regain the upper-hand on the game. With about 25 minutes left to play, Ally scored the pivotal 4th goal after some neat passing. Prakash, who had by then replaced Jason in goals, had time to make a great save on one of the rare chances the Dragons had to score. We missed several scoring opportunities before Ally scored his second goal of the day to make it 5-1, final score.

After the game, we went to Luga’s to celebrate our 11th win in a row. Chris Lupton was voted Man-of-the-match for his tireless work in central midfield and his superb goal and Amir, despite playing very well during the 30 minutes he spent on the pitch, was again the one who collected the most votes for Donkey, notably for missing (almost) open goals on 2 occasions. It was the first time we managed to beat the Dragons, and it was a truly excellent team performance from all involved.

No game next weekend for Palace BUT please come to training on Wednesday evening and IMPORTANTLY, come to support Forbidden City who is playing vs Afrika Utd in the Cup Final, on sunday 8th May, 4 PM kick off at the LIDO.
Cheers,
Patrick

PS: Charles still top-scorer with 11 goals, Manuel and Ally just behind with 10 goals each.

CUP QUARTER FINAL MATCH – 9th December 2007The Afrikans were determined to slaughter us in this match and were confident before the match had even begun. They weren’t so sure after only 2 minutes as Macia made a superbly weighted cross from the right wing which Nick Otto gracefully volleyed from about 35 yards out to lob it over the keeper while dipping it under the cross-bar in to the back of the net. A glorious goal. It made the Afrikans angry and they fought back hard, but gave away a penalty. Having just scored the opening goal Nick confidently stood up to the spot, but as Sam said on the sidelines, “when he misses this, the glory of the first goal will soon be forgotten”, or words to that effect. The keeper had no chance, but unfortunately the ball ricocheted across the face of the goal after hitting the right post low down, and went out for a corner. Despite the miss, City confidence was running high and FCFC controlled the first fifteen minutes of the game. Philippe was fighting all over the right-side of the pitch and stormed out of the back at one point going Hans Solo in to the African half, unfortunately the race back to his defensive position was too much for the guy who’se been ill in bed all week and he knackered his ankle and came off limping to be replaced by Robbie.Similarly to how alcohol addles the brain and weed gives you short-term memory loss, standing on the sidelines on a cold December day in Beijing doesn’t only make your feet like blocks of ice, it can also make your brain like a breeze-block and not so lucid. Luckily there was both alcohol and weed (as well as Annie’s Pizza for the Summer Palace team who’d just lost on pens to the Russian’s in their quarter final game) to keep the supporters smiling against the cold. Those of us on the sidelines weren’t too sure what happened for the next 20 minutes on pitch and I’m not sure those in the City defence were too sure either. Afrika’s shortest player scored with a header against the leagues tallest defence and then again with a lucky? knock-on header from a corner, then raced through the middle of the pitch to score again and again. At the other end, City were awarded another penalty and this time Luca slotted the ball home safely. Half time didn’t come soon enough and Afrika had changed a possible 0-2 after two minutes into a 3-2 lead after 45 minutes.In the second half the Afrikans upped the tempo and were playing the ball around the centre of the pitch comfortably with a bevy of players coming through the ranks to battle the City defence. It was a strange match, but quite a typical Beijing cup match and worth the frost-bite for the few still on the sidelines. All sorts of strange ref decisions, stupid mistakes and moments of inspiration occurred. City had their share of counter attacks and Phil ‘the volvo’ Fughe was awarded the Man of the Match for his solid performance, passion and play down the right side of the pitch, teaming up well with Gianni and Rob, feeding well on to Nick and Macia. It should also be mentionned that Phil did the double, by not only playing in two games, but winning both the donkey and man of the match awards. As Diane (Kelly Lynch) said in Drugstore Cowboy, “Sometimes bad luck can be good luck”. The lucky fella got to drink both a large Kro shot of Vodka and Tequila! A few chances were missed which would have reduced the goal-difference and perhaps culled the Afrikans attack. Macia did however score a great goal late in the game and in between other Afrikan goals to help keep the City players battling on. Unfortunately the Afrikan’s weren’t missing the target and the shots were being so well placed Jason couldn’t stretch to the far corners to save all the chances.[TABLE=24] [TABLE=25] As usual, you can see more details of the match and goals on our webteams page.