Calm Before the Storm
Part 24 | Yanbian FC | 延边足球俱乐部 | 연변축구 | FM23 Hardcore Mode
Shanxi Longjin
It won’t surprise you to learn that we beat Shanxi Longjin.
However, this was another one of those games in which we fell asleep in the second half. We got out to a quick 1-0 lead behind a rare Fan Xiang goal, doubled it when Rovaglia scored in the 14th minute, and then saw Mr. Kwon score one in the 36th minute to put us up by three.
And that’s all she wrote.
I don’t know why, but these players seem to get goal shy every now and then. We’ve seen it happen a few times this season. Teams that we should be absolutely dominating on paper are able to fend off our attack enough to keep the scoreline somewhat reasonable.
Mr. Kwon played well despite his upset feelings towards me. However, Pak Myong-Song wound up with the Player of the Match award, despite having 0 goals and 0 assists. I don’t really understand it, but I’m not going to complain.
That makes 21 straight matches. We’ve scored 122 goals, which is off from the pace we were on before. The crazy thing is that we don’t have the most prolific goalscorer in the league, which is a bit counterintuitive.
The Big One
We’re back at home for our next match — a Chinese FA Cup game against Tianjin.
Tianjin are in 7th place in the China Super League. This is our chance to show that we are just as good as the best teams in the country.
The board and the press both expect us to win. I’m not quite as confident, to be honest. We have a good side, but I don’t think we’re quite good enough to compete at that level — not yet, at least.
I’m also concerned that Huang Bowen is out with the flu, which means we’ll be missing some firepower up front. And, of course, this match comes only 3 days after our victory in Shanxi, which means that a number of our players will be tired.
Tianjin’s Director of Football, Yu Genwei, told the press the day before the match that they plan to rotate their squad and play some of their younger players in this match. My hope is that Tianjin makes good on this threat and continues to underestimate our abilities. Otherwise, we might very well be looking at our first loss of the season tomorrow.
Fasten your seatbelts for this one!