Match Report - GDM 2 - 1 Depois Da Vitoria

We’re under a month away now from the start of the season here in Mozambique. After a couple of weeks of fitness and tactical training sessions we hoped we would see our plans start to come together in this friendly match.

After a pre match meal of dried fish, cabbage and rice at the clubhouse we were ready. We all packed onto the truck and off we went. We arrived about 45 minutes later at Depois Da Vitoria ground, which is on the outskirts of the local town to Manica called Chimoio.

When we first arrived we were disappointed to find out we would be playing on their training pitch, which wasn’t good at all, even to Mozambique standards. Anyway determined to do the best with the surface available we told the squad the starting team and quickly revised the tactics we had worked on in the past week.

After a bit of a rushed warm up, the game started and maybe this was the reason for our sluggish start. After about 10 minutes we conceded a goal from a knock down off a long ball, which the runner then latched on to and shot accurately to score in the bottom corner. Despite having to accept it was a good finish, our defence should have been tighter to the striker. Annoyingly when they scored a few of their fans ran onto the pitch and threw their drink cans in the air which caused a delay of a couple of minutes as the pitch was cleared.

After the goal though we started to dominate the game and play like I knew we could. It was a strong first game from our two deeper CMs. We were most dangerous when we got the ball in the wide areas, especially to Isiah (GDMs Arjen Robben) who would beat his man or play off the number 9 Datia (GDMs Lewandowski). This attacking combination play was very promising to see. Isiah then equalised from a free kick to take us into half time at 1-1.

It wasn’t until the break that I had noticed the crowd numbers. At kick off the crowd was about 100, by half time it had increased to about 600/700, the fans essentially set the boundaries of the pitch. One poor bloke had been givem the job to continously tell people to step away from the pitch.

Kids surrounded the team during our half time talk, listening carefully to instructions the coach had translated for me. As you can see in the picture below. Because of the fact it’s a pre season match and it’s crucial to give every player a chance to prove themself, we switched almost the whole team at half time.

The second half was a lot scrappier to be honest and we didn’t control the game as much. However when we attacked we did look dangerous especially when we countered down the right side of the field, where our RB Joao attacked purposefully. This was demonstrated by the fact our goal came from an attack that started down the right wing and ended up with Datia leaping high in the air from about 12 yards out and scoring an unstoppable bullet header. We would then hold out for the win.

This was a strong start, I am confident when we play this team in the league, hopefully on a better pitch, we will beat them comfortably.

The journey home on the truck was extremely entertaining. Still about 30 minutes away from Manica, head coach Pingy out of nowhere started singing and instantaneously the whole group replied together in unison. When the responses were repetitive and simple we could join in, which they loved. The singing and dancing didn’t stop until we got back to the clubhouse. Lets hope for many more victorious away days!!!

Up the GDM!!!

#Mozambique