The last tournament for Michel and Matze, and therefore the expectations have been high. The team looked pretty solid on paper with Michel, Otto, Ivan, Kelly, Markus, Richard, Pablo, Felipe, Thomas, Benni, Wolfgang and Matze.


There have been 16 teams and 4 groups in the first round, where we played 2 Thai teams and BSL. The first game was solid football and all players played easy balls, so as consequence we won this game by a goal of Ivan with 1:0 after 15 min. In the second game the old illness of GAS came back and everybody rather wanted to run with the ball instead of playing the easy one, so we lost this game by 1:0 and it was clear, that if we want to come into the top 8 teams we have to win the last game against BSL. Matze told the team, that additional training will follow immediately if we lose this game, he’d better should have said if we will not win this game, as we draw a 0:0 and therefore played in the shield division for 8th to 16th place.
First game here was against ThaiBev, a team which didn’t win one game until now. But this should change, as they won 1:0 against us and old wisdom became true, if you do not play the ball, if you do not run and especially if you do not score you do not win games!
Matze in his last coaching actions, tried to change, whatever was possible and lined up the Spanish speaking section for the next game against BU Japan on the defending line. So Pablo, Ivan and Filipe in defense. The game started and with the first shot on goal BU Japan was leading 1:0. Hmmm, what happened? Our goalie was looking like an English man, ts ts ts, normally if you get a goal like this you cannot sleep for several nights. It was then Matze, who scored for the 1:1 after a nice pass of Michel, the old guys back in action. Thomas Maurer showed some technique, we couln’t even see of the Spanish in the world cup. So penalty sudden death after normal time and Benni and Michel scored for GAS for the victory.
Last game of the day was against British Club and with the new line up, we started aggressive with nice chances. Matze missed a nice cross from Wolfgang, as he could not decide what to use, foot, head or belly. It was then Matze again after a nice pass from Ivan, who set up Michel and he scored as the Swiss did against Spain. But as usual we got the 1:1 equalizer and again penalty shoot out. Against the British Club, Germany – England. But Kelly seems to missed something here in history, as his shot (?) was saved by the goalie and Benni could not save the penalty of BC, so we lost 1:2 and came in 14th out of 16th.
Anyhow another nice Sunday afternoon, special thanks here again to Lili, for coffee and cake, the team really appreciated.
At the end we had some beers together and Michel as well as Matze have been awarded by the Vets league and will leave soon GAS Bangkok. Good luck to both and thanks again.
MtC