Bridges FC Defeats sc Heerenveen Reserve Team 1 – 0

In a very strong showing, Bridges was up to the task today.  The lone goal of the match was scored in the 16th minute when Luis Mojica intercepted a pass and quickly played a through ball to Brandon Loncar who finished with a one touch shot.  Bridges spent the majority of the match defending very well as a team and individually.  In the first 15 minutes of the match, the defending was very strong, not allowing a shot on goal, even though the majority of play was in our defensive half.  We lost the ball early and often in the beginning.  However, once we settled into the match, we were able to have greater strings of possession together with quicker speed of play.  Most importantly, we defended as a team and put heavy pressure on Heerenveen for the entire match.  This created more and more situations where Heerenveen lost possession, which allowed us to step in and win the ball.  Although Heerenveen controlled the majority of play for the match, they were not dangerous on our goal.  In fact, Heerenveen finished with 4 shots to Bridges’ 3 shots.

After  the match, a Heerenveen player came up to Head Coach Bret Hall and said “we need to combine your spirit and half play with our technical ability, then we would have amazing teams.”   We agree that we need to improve both technically and mentally.  The European Tour is the time when Bridges players begin to fully understand this and begin the journey of development as they are put in an environment of high competition.

This was a very positive match for Bridges players, who put everything into the match and saw success not so much in the win as in the way we played, focused, dedicated, and ruthless defensively for the entire match.

With a short amount of time for recovery, we play the FC Utrecht Reserves (Eredivisie) tomorrow, Tuesday July 24th at 6:30 pm Netherlands Time.  At this point, Bridges FC is now 3 – 1 on the European Tour.