26 april 2011
This game started off a little slowly, in my opinion – not badly, just not quite brightly, but anyway certainly in KGFC's favor. In the 35th, some nice combination play from KGFC's Lisa Ek and Sara Lindén resulting in a corner kick. Some nice play in the 36th minute, when KGFC's Lisa Dahlqvist wins a ball, then sends it to Ek on the right, who sends a long cross up to Lindén. A defender swipes at her, and she makes a twisty leap over, staying on her feet, and just managing to touch the ball past Umeå's keeper Caroline Jönsson, who dived the wrong way. But the ball was moving very slowly, and Umea's Tuija Hyyrynen came flying in from to clear the ball away just before it touched the goal line; Lindén pounded the ground in frustration. In the 39th, KGFC's defender Stina Segerström went down clutching her foot; she knows that the injury is serious and one of her teammates quickly motions for a stretcher. Later we learned that she had torn her Achilles tendon, which ends her season, at the very least.In the second half the tempo picked up noticeably, with better play from both sides, but certianly with more pressure from Umeå, and defender Jane Törnqvist is forced to clear a ball from her own penalty area that she sends out to the parking lot. (For some reason, I have a fondness for overkill clearances like this; I think it's just fun to see how high and far a football can really travel when someone really hits it just right.) Meanwhile, Umeå's Ramona Bachmann was now making her presence felt. She is somewhat notorious for falling down easily, and then adding interest to that fall in the form of rolling. It is therefore interesting to see what happens when she actually gets hit hard. KGFC's Lisa Ek smacks into her from the side; Bachmann falls directly with no exaggeration, and gets up rather quickly. Yellow card to Ek.
In the 55th KGFC had some very nice passing work up the right side of the field after an Umeå free kick; two minutes later they had a nice series of passes up the left side. In a play typical of the entire evening, in the 61st, KGFC forward Linnea Liljegärd sent a head shot into the sky from in front of the goal. KGFC is simply failing with their last touch.
It's not until the 85th that someone scored, and the goal was a very nice one. Umeå's young and speedy forward Sofia Jakobsson received a long ball on the left, took about two touches on it to avoid her defender, and perfectly hit a shot that went into the roof of the goal. 0-1 to Umeå. The game turns nearly furious in the last few minutes, as KGFC try to equalize, and defender Törnqvist is sent up front. At some point Liljegärd hurt herself and took up a precious minute on the ground; she eventually got up, rubbing her tailbone and scowling mightily. The expression on her face more or less sums up KGFC's season to date; three games in, and they have not scored a goal.Random observation: a pre-season article at damfotboll.com lists this year's teams and their international players. Umeå has players from four countries, which is maybe low for them, but their fan club proudly puts up flags for players from each country, flags which can be seen in the screenshot below. This year, just as last, Kopparbergs/Göteborg's players are all Swedish.
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