The internal battle for slots in the starting 11 of the Raiders league team is on, since pre season prep has started. Mondays HIIT sessions at SSC in D7 help the players to increase their basic and core fitness as well as their strength. Wednesdays training sessions in D4 are all about endurance, strength and getting comfortable with the ball. 

After that, pre season is also about getting match minutes in. Raiders have enough players this season to easily arrange a Raiders v Raiders friendly pre season on a 11 side pitch, such as the beautiful one in Binh Thanh district of HCMC that hosted the Raiders v Raiders match on last Saturday. South Vietnam’s rainy season comes with a 99 % chance of heavy rain in the early afternoon. The match was scheduled for 1:30 pm, but the weather god was with the Raiders that day and the sun decided to welcome the players at the pitch.  

Raiders White started with Arjen in goal, in the defence with Scott, Stephan, James and Pierre (from left to right) and Ben, Bart and Vincent in midfield. Martin played on 10, Jonas and Emmanuel formed the attack. Andres, Dragos and Nano started on the bench of the Whites. 

Raiders Red had Danny Vo in goal, defence consisting of Sipho, Olly, Toby and Flo. Midfield Adam, Guido and Myles. Upfront Mike Owen, Eric and Chris.  

Reds had control over the first half with easily 80% possession, but lacked the efficiency to hurt Arjen and the whites. The first 30 minutes indeed showed that the Raiders have a very strong panel this season and the fight for a place in the starting 11 is gonna be a tough one. 

Reds played to ball, Whites only had three chances but managed to scored two. Both goals were created individually by Emma and Vincent who turned on their turbo and caught Danny off guard and/or on his phone.  

For Reds the second half started after a good talk with coach Colin who stated that they had the better part of the play, but that the team needed to be more clinical in front of goal.

After a furious start of the second half with some great plays from both teams, the pace slowly died out showing that the monday-evening-torture-classes are still very much needed and the 2 remaining weeks of pre-season should be taken seriously by everybody.

With Whites not being able to create more chances, Reds smelled blood and pushed for the goal to bring back the excitement in Binh Thanh district.

Around the 60th minute Mike Owen finally finished his warmup and decided to show the new guys his signature fake-turn-goal maneuver. 2-1, much to the frustration of Scotty Ramos.

Again, Reds played the ball but the accuracy and quality went down when with about 15 minutes on the clock, coach Colin decided to go all-out and put Flo and Ollie up front. Chris, who was very tired this afternoon, took a rest and the last 10 minutes were about Reds leveling the score. Few chances were created when in the final second Vincent started one of his runs again and crossed the ball to Flo whose toe was just half a centimeter short of putting the ball behind goalie Arjen.

Missed, whistle, end of match & Whites steal the win.

In all a good performance of every Raider and with about 2 weeks left we look very strong this year. Our club being able to draft 3 teams in one weekend says enough. Our mission has started! 

MOTM: Sipho (Making a very strong comeback) & Vincent (No idea why he got that)[Einde van tekstterugloop]TOTM: Vincent (Very deserved for making a Judas transfer (Again)) & Flo (Not so deserved cause if the team needs a defender up front….)