Grasshopper Club Zürich - Red Sox --- 5:1
Last Sunday the first men’s team faced last seasons promoted team and local rival Red Sox Zürich to start off a GC Hockey Sunday followed by the women’s NLA match against Black Boys Geneva. With light rain coming down and support from the fans the team planned to extend their lead in the league ahead of Olten and Wettingen not far behind.
The team got off to an excellent start with a skillful solo by the Swiss-Argentian youngster Ima Poulastrou-Gonzalez over the left side finished by a sharp cross from inside the dee into front of the opponents goal. In best striker’s manner, a Red Sox defender threw himself into the pass and deflected the ball to the top left corner, giving the team under coach Franco Romani an early lead after just 2 minutes. This promising start was followed by 15 minutes of constant pressure by GC challenging the visitors keeper one time after another. With disciplined positioning and fights over every single attempt to extend the lead, Red Sox Zürich managed to keep the game under control in the first quarter.
The second quarter began as had become apparent from the last one, with the home team pressing high and their opponents displaying a great amount of endurance in keeping their goal clean. Shortly before the half time mark, GC’s constant efforts to get ahead proved successful with yet another deflection by routinier Lars Bamberg with a cheeky touch through his own legs right into the long corner. With the home team showing first signs of fatigue and the countless successful defensive actions by their opponents, Red Sox took the opportunity to get back into the game and create their own chances from counter attacks. Luckily, the defense on both sides showed presence that day and the teams left into half time with GC leading the match 2:0.
Clearly not satisfied with the first half’s result, the home team came back on the pitch and managed to secure an early penalty corner. With self-confidence from the last matches and hundreds hours of practice, the GC shooters lined up and gave a perfect low driven drag-flick, this time again finding their own player’s stick. Artur von Ruffer was wide awake on his spot and left the goalkeeper no chance with a precisely placed deflection right underneath the crossbar, extending the lead to 3:0. Shortly after, the boys in blue and white managed to capitalise on their newly found joy in scoring and converted a sharp cross from just outside the 25 with a sneaky touch by routinier Lars Bamberg and the final tap in by Patrick Krusi to make it 4:0. Late into the third quarter, one of the Red Sox strikers decided to show an excellent run around the dee and put a perfect tomahawk into the top left corner, leaving goalkeeper Lukas Egloff no chance to make it 4:1, marking the honorary goal for the guests.
To set the final score to a well deserved win, Oliver Haberthür took his opportunity in the last quarter abandoning his defender and driving the ball through the Red Sox’ keepers leg to make it 5:1 from the top left corner of the circle.
We want to thank the coaching team and everyone who attended the game to support us.
GC players:
Lars Bamberg, Benjamin Eddy, Lukas Egloff, Lucho Ferrario, Luca Frank, Pascal Gremlich, Oliver Haberthür, Lucas Harte, Jochen Klages, Patrick Krüsi, Milan Lohm, Philip Nitsch, Joel Plambeck, Imanuel Poulastrou-Gonzalez, Fabian Steiner, Artur von Ruffer
Goals: Lars Bamberg, Oliver Haberthür, Patrick Krüsi, Artur von Ruffer, Imanuel Poulastrou-Gonzalez
Coach: Franco Romani