HooGee Blue Diamonds meets Gothia Cup 2010
We are heading off to Gothia Cup this coming Sunday and here you will be able to follow our adventure and see some great pictures taken along the trip!
Sunday 18.7 Arrival
The long wait has finally come to an end and we are FINALLY in Gothenburg! The first day has basically been a big hazel with the two groups travelling at different times but both groups managed to get safetly to the hotel. When the second group(delayed by 1 hour) had finally got their bags into the hotel the whole group off pink hooded girls plus one pink assistant and two gentlemens headed to the identification and some foood(atleast the latter group were starving!). The food service was a bit o a disappointment, mainly because the cafeteria was boiling hot, as well as the spices in the food. Although everyone seemed quite happy leaving the place with full stomaches. When we arrived back to the hotel our mighty coach kept a brief teamtalk and then supprised the girls with a football quiz which the girls managed to do quite well in, atleast everyone got half of the answers right! Since we are an hour behind the Finnish time everyone is starting to get tired, atleast we leaders hope they will fall asleep like little angels which we unfortunatley doubt... Tomorrow is an early morning for us with the first game of the tournament! I will be uploading some pictures tomorrow and ofcourse the final scores from the games! -S-
Monday 19.7
The morning started better then we had hopped, most of the girls were up when the morning check up came by. After a very nice breakfast at the hotel we headed off towards the trainstation and Kungsbacka. The trip was very conveniant and our new nice Gothia cards very handy since we don't need to think about paying anything. When arriving to the pitches we got a big surprise, 11 huge pitchen next to eachother, and all real grass! While warming up we had luck to enjoy watching two older boys teams(if I'm not lying they could have been around 18 year old?!) from Greece and Israel. Some good football before the game for the girls as well as some adrenaline for them. The team we played today were called Franke and came from the swedish city of Västerås. The game did not start to well for our part since they managed to score after 1 minute due to a lack of communication between some of our players. But this did not keep us down, after fighting for the whole first period and almost the whole second one Ida managed to score a really nice goal. Although being all happy about scoring the girls forgot for a moment that we were playing football and that resulted in a goal for Franke. But still this did not keep us down, just before the referee blew the whisle Ida(once again) managed to put a perfect tap in to the left bottom corner which the goalkeeper had no chance to get. So the final result for the game was 2-2 and it is a good situation to continue from. We also want to thank our own private cheerleading group, which contained 6 of the girls from the -95 borns team. That was a good help! I added some pictures to the gallery, enjoy! -S-
Tuesday 20.7
Since we knew how to work the morning program it was a bit easier to get going this morning. although the girls were still a bit tired after the very nice opening ceremoy last night. Unfortunately the photografer forgot to take the camera with her so no pictures of that at the monent but some of the girls have nice pictures so we will added them on later. But what it came to this morning the weather was(and still is) nice, the sun is shining and there is a nice wind to not make it too hot. The girls were full off energy for the game and we were ready to get a win. The game started off and soon we noticed that it would not be easy to win and we lost quite so fast one goal. The girls played on and fighted really hard during the whole game, unfortunatley it did not go our way today, the final score was 0-3 to FC Fjärås. The rest of the day we will just relax and get ready for the last group game tomorrow. I will also put some more pictures in later today. -S-
Wednesday 21.7
Yesterdays relaxing took a new turn and the girls ended up in the disco whiles the coaches headed for the leaders party. When meeting outside after the two different happenings everyone was ready for bed and most girls also for showers. This morning we had a very nice wake-up call at 6.00 due to the early game. Everyone managed to get up and eat some breakfast and head towards the already familiar trainstation. Because the game was so early it had not got very hot yet so it was perfect weather for football. Although the girls were really tired the warm-up went quite well end everyone seemed to be ready for the game. This was an game we wanted to atleast tie, hoping to win it. At the same time on the pitch next to our one the two other teams played. It was both for us and Franke a need to get a tie or a win to stay as 3 in the group. So the game against Sunnersta kicked off and it was a very very intense game with yellowcards and free-kicks. Unfortunatley Sunnersta managed to get a goal from one of our mistakes and that was also the final score for the game, Sunnersta 1 Hoogee 0. Althought when getting the news that Franke had lost 4-0 to Fjärås, the girls seemed more like winners. So this means that we skip one round tomorrow and have our game at 17.00. So atleast the girls will get a long morning sleep tomorrow and they have the whole day to get ready for the game. The rest of todays program is still open, but at the moment most of the girls are sleeping for a few hours to get some energy for the rest off the day. I added some more pictures now as well, enjoy! -S-
Thursday 22.7
Thursday started with a proper breakfast for everyone at 10 and some more free time. After doing some team building games the team headed out for lunch at the school and towards the pitches. Unfortunatley we had to leave one girl at the hotel with fever, we hope she will be better tomorrow. When arriving to the pitch there was a light practice and bananas for everyone. All the girls knew that this was the game to win if we wanted to still keep playing at the tournament. The start off the game was a bit nervous and nothing really went right until the girls finally realized that they were there to play football and the shooting towards IK Bargum's goal started. Then in the end off the first half we managed to get a corner and from the situation Ella managed to hit a perfect shot in to the left corner and the game was 1-0 to the diamonds. That was also the final score althought the referee seemed to not like us very much since the Bargum's girls look more like they were playing handball than football with all their hands toughing the ball. And we also had around 20 shots towards the goal but there was always either a player in the way or the ball went wide. But the main point was that we won although the girls were not very happy in their own game. Winning the game today ment that we are in the best 16 off the B-finals which is already a very good achievement when there was 128 teams from the beginning. There is though a lot to improve from the game today for the game tomorrow morning. The game starts at 10.00 so it is a early morning for the girls again. More pictures uploaded again. -S-
Friday 23.7
WHAT A DAY!!! It started with an early breakfast and all the girls were really tired. When we finally were ready to go and standing at the bus stop the mood rose while we were listening to some good music. We arrived early to Kviberg and had the chance to watch a good penaltyshoot-out before warming up. The first game was against IFK Örby and the game started very bad for the girls, pretty much everything went wrong and the other team managed to get a goal almost straight away. When the halftime whistles went the girls were annoyed at themselves. After some teamtalk the girls were ready for a fight and in the middle of the second half we managed to get a freekick from just outside the box and Ida shot a perfect shot into the upper corner and there was no chance for the goalkeeper to get it. The game ended 1-1 and that ment that it was our turn for the penaltyshoot-out. The girls seemed confident and Örby took the first shot. Panda managed to save that one and Örby got frustrated. Eventually Öreby missed one more shot and we managed to get all our shots(Ida,Soffi,Ella,Panda) in so we were through to the next round!
After the game we headed off for lunch and resting before the game. We knew the next game would be harder in every way so there was a lot to get ready for. The second game was against IF Kalmar. The game started perfectly for us, Maija passed a perfect pass to Ida who shot it behind the goalkeeper. The game was 1-0 all the way until the 17th minute off the second half when they managed to score. So once again the game ended 1-1 and we were up for the second penaltyshoot-out. Once again the other team started and scored the first one. Then Ida hit a perfect shot into the corner and it was again Kalamar's turn. But at this point Kalmar's luck run out because Panda managed to catch the next 3 of their shots and Soffi and Ella scored their shots so once again we were through to the next round!
At this point the girls started to get tired and hungry. We decided not to eat dinner before the next game so the girls got some bananas, which has been our secret weapon this tournament, and some energy drinks before the game. The next game, which was the SEMIFINAL, was agains Triangelns IK. We knew they were going to be a good team so we put everything on play. Unfortunatley the girls were so tired at that point that it was not enough and the game ended 3-0 to TIK. But the girls felt like winners because this is the furthest they have every managed to get in a tournament. We leaders are very proud of all the girls! Tomorrow we will just do some shopping and Liseberg and the last night of disco for the girls.
I added some more pictures again, enjoy!