After a month and half of intense preparations with fitness training's on Mondays and Hockey training twice a week, GC ladies were anxious before their first match on Sunday. We have high expectations for this outdoor season, after becoming champions of NLB league last season, and our strong commitment can already be seen by the few absences from the 3 times a week training. Moreover, this match against Luzern was the debut of Lukas Roloff as the new coach and there were new tactics to test for the first time in an official game.
As planned, we started putting pressure on Luzern's defense from the first minutes but it took us almost the whole first quarter of the match to find the right space and patience that the tactics demands. Unfortunately, after a sudden counter attack from Luzern, they scored a goal from a short-corner.
Lukas advice after the first quarter helped us to find patience and play the game we wanted.
We had possession of the ball for most of the time and this resulted in rebounded goal that Mathilde Dupin scored at a short corner, giving GC some hope and strength to fight for a victory. The joy did not last long, as Luzern benefited from a short corner immediately after and scored their second goal.
In the half-time break, we decided to change our positions into a defensive mode to try out the different settings of the team and to try to keep ourselves in the game. The third quarter started with Luzern putting pressure on our defense but Josie s skills in goal and our defensive tactics helped us to end this quarter with no goals conceded.
During the last quarter, the team decided to keep the defensive defense but also to fight for the balls when Luzern had any free shot in their field. This led to some counter-attacks and two short corners in our favour but it also gave Luzern the chance to find some space in the defense and score their third goal.
Being defeated in the first match was hard for the team, but we have learned from it and will keep on training to improve our performances on the field. Nevertheless, we can already see the impact of our pre-season preparation as we were faster and maintained the ball possession much better than in last season.
Last but not least, we would like to congratulate Hanna and Lyndsay for having their first match with the team as well as a big official welcome to Lukas as coach. Special thanks go to Marcel and Claudio that keep on supporting the team by Lukas side and to all the GC fans that were at Hardhof supporting the team.
GC Players:
Josefine Quack (GK), Vanesa Rocha Martin, Nicole Arlt, Mathilde Dupin (C), Tanja Melle, Julia Fröschner, Isabelle Nijman, Laura Ferster, Luntu Ntloko, Lyndsay Lomax, Tilia Schneider, Anna Decker, Virginia Friedrich, Hanna Wettstein, Wendela Koelman, Nina van der Velde, Inga Bartels
Goal: Mathilde Dupin
Coach: Lukas Roloff