'17 ⚽ 0-1 Etz Ashdod goal
'41 ⚽ 0-2 Etz Ashdod goal
'52 ⚽ 1-2 Guile Meyer goal, Motti Colman assist
'85 ⚽ 1-3 Etz Ashdod goal
'87 ⚽ 2-3 Guile Meyer goal
Top row (from left to right): Allan Camarov, Mikey Meyer, Sabi Beraha, Eliran Pinto, Renan Prais, Asher Goldberg, Motti Colman, Matt Keston and Sam Sank.
Bottom row (from left to right): Oz Kenner, David Garzon, Reuben Lewis, Eyal Cumartesi, Ben Byre, Shai Revivo, Guile Meyer and Joey Spijer.
A hard defeat to take as the most one sided half of football in our favour this season still ended in a loss. We deserved more from the game, but in the end were punished for a poor first half performance and missed opportunities.
It was obvious from the early minutes that this was going to be an open game, the French had pacy forwards who they looked each time to just play the ball over the top to and hit us on the break whilst we controlled much of the possession and created chances.
However despite an aggressive approach to the game early on and keeping possession well, against the run of play we went 1-0 down as the French broke away on the counter down our right hand side and a nice finish off the post from their winger put them ahead.
It was after this that we stopped moving up and down the pitch together as a team and really struggled to keep possession or press, putting balls in the air and giving the ball away really cheaply. The handful of chances we had in the first half we didn’t take and then we were punished as a poor clearance in the box was finished off to make it 2-0 before half time.
Matt Keston told his side at half time that if we get an early goal in that second half it changes everything and that’s exactly what happened. We pressed high from the start of the half and won a corner, taken by Motti Colman and headed home well by Guile Meyer on the 51st minute to give us the lifeline.
What happened next was 35 minutes of us camped in the French half, they could not get out as we created chance after chance. Guile came alive down the right hand side and the French defence could not deal with him, but every shot was saved by a very good goalkeeper or went just wide.
Joey Spijer had a stunning free kick from 30 yards that smashed the cross bar. Our defending was immense and they could not get past us, Mikey Meyer had hardly anything to do in the second half. With 10 minutes to go we went 3 at the back and went even more attacking to find the goal, still their goalie stood strong.
With 5 minutes to go we were punished for the first time in the half the French had a sniff at goal they scored to make it 3-1 and it looked game over. However, 2 minutes later Guile again scored as the ball was lifted in the box by Shai Revivo, the keeper saved it and it dropped to Guilie who found the corner of the net.
We would have 2 more big chances, Motti putting Eliran Pinto through on goal but a huge save by the keeper put the ball out for a corner. From the resulting corner everyone went forward and ball dropped to Renan Prais on the edge of the box who smashed it just wide as the final whistle went.
