After serving the Sa*nts a signature spanking the previous week, Raiders were ready and raring to give them another rogering.

Taking inspiration from La Liga who will begin hosting games in the US, the sleuths at SIFL have spotted an exciting opportunity at a new location in distant Thu Duc. Overnight bags were packed, visas applied for, snuggle buddies lubed up, private jets chartered, winning team selected, absolutely everything was set for our season opener at the Sports University in Thu Duc, apart from our opposition…

The Scaredy Sa*nts and The Fighting Cowards cocked it all up for everyone by staging a very late protest about stuff they were already well aware of. After much reshuffling and some fine work by respestive committees the Raiders would play a friendly game against Sporting.

The team was weakened as our non-English Brits decided they were no longer up for the battle as Mike Owen and Gary dropped out to attend birthday parties and burger eating contests respectively.

Our new warm up regime of posing for photos with Cocoxim made a nice change from the usual prancing about and stretching as we started with some direct attacking which almost led to a goal after a couple of minutes. The ball was squared perfectly from the left wing for Clem to tap into an empty goal with his right foot, but as we all know Clem only has one foot and went for it with his left. The result was a goal kick to Sporting. The game went on and Clem did manage to bag a goal shortly afterwards thanks to some nice build up from the Manu with many names.

From this winning position we failed to press on and Sporting started pumping long balls forward towards their pacey pineapple-haired poacher. After a ball broke oh so high into the air Stephan won a header and played it in the direction of Scott who had cocked his leg ready to fire like a Celtic catapult. The problem with catapults is that they are not too mobile and the enemy can see them coming a mile away, much like the Sporting striker did here as he leaped to an ungodly height and pinched the ball off Scott’s toe before racing through to equalise.

Moments later Sporting were at it again this time spraying balls at our defence quicker than you can say premature ejaculation. It was one punt too many and the tallest man on the pitch was beaten in the air by the pineapple head, who after a little grapple with Adam was through on goal to out Sporting 2-1 up. Whilst Kendo doesn’t make sure that nobody gets past him, he does make sure that those who do can’t run properly again, and that was the last meaningful contribution from Jason Lee.

As the rest of the game went on, new formations were tried and players were played in unfamiliar roles, as Colin was playing the role of his lookalike Heston Blumenthal, experimenting on the sidelines. Heston threw on Thijs who clearly woke up on the wrong side of bed that morning and got booked less than 60 seconds after coming on. A bit of handbags ensued and Guido took the opportunity to get needlessly involved to protect his homeboy, real cute guys. Not long after a familiar Dutchie popped up to make it 2-2, nice one Clem.

Sporting scored another avoidable goal from a goal mouth scramble before Kim almost scored his first goal for Raiders after initially blocking a goalbound shot from Tam but alas, it wasn’t to be. Nevertheless it remained 3-2 Sporting until the final moments as Stephan floated a lovely free kick into the box and Vincent rose like the German salmon he is to notch his second header in two games, full time 3-3.

Lots to improve upon before the league kicks off this weekend but there were some positives out there for sure.

Onwards and upwards ladies.

PS: For those of you reading these match reports from afar, Raiders games will be available to livestream on the SIFL / WeSport Facebook pages. So you can watch us whether you are money laundering in Panama, opening Turkish kebab shops in London or arranging neo-Nazi demonstrations in Denmark, enjoy!