U8 Calcio Select - Opponent
Calcio followed last week's narrow victory against GT Sports with a 12-2 defeat of Aspire Hull, to make it three wins on the bounce!
The team started as they meant to go on, as Luca, putting on a high press - following what we worked on at training last night - won the ball back and fed Martin to score with less than a minute on the clock. Despite being on top, there was no further goal for the next ten minutes, but when it came, it was almost an exact replica of the first, with Luca pressing and winning the ball, passing to Martin, and Martin slotting the ball into the back of the net. The final goal of the third came a few minutes later: Luca pressed his direct opponent from the kick in, which forced him into a mistake; Grayson picked up the ball, drove bravely, and powered a shot past the goalkeeper to leave Calcio 3-0 up at the first break.
The second third was our weakest, yet we still managed to win it 4-2. The first three goals were almost identical, although with different players performing the actions. The first goal came from Robin pressing, winning the ball, and scoring, and Will did the exact same thing less than a minute later. The pick of the three was scored by Ted, who having read a pass from Aspire's goalkeeper to the striker intercepted before launching a missile into the top corner. However, either side of Ted's goal Aspire managed to score, as Calcio left players unmarked in dangerous areas of the pitch: something to keep working on. The final goal of the third was scored by Robin, who finished excellently with his left foot, but a lot of credit should also go to Will for the assist: he took a quick kick in before releasing Robin with a fantastic diagonal pass. 7-2.
The final third was completely dominant. In net, Martin had very little to do: he assures me that he made one save, but I don't remember it, such was the territorial dominance of the third. The first goal took six minutes to arrive, as a Luca corner - which caused Aspire problems throughout the whole match - ricocheted off Robin into Will's path, to score his second of the game, the most fortuitous of Robin's four assists in the third! The second and third goals were again similar to each other, as Robin played excellent passes into Luca, who scored with two good finishes, the first going in off the post. For the fourth goal, Grayson won the ball himself before smashing his strike across the goalkeeper into the far corner, while Grayson completed his hattrick for the fifth, with Robin notching another assist, as Robin's ball across the box found Grayson at the back post for a tap in. 12-2FT.
All in all, a dominant performance, with many good performances. For the first time this season, all players scored, and the pressing and effort put Aspire under constant pressure, which was amazing to see. There's no JPL game next week, but there is a game at training on Friday, so it would be great to have as many there as possible.
