It’s been a pretty dramatic start to the season, that’s for sure.

A couple of weeks ago, we kicked-off facing Cargolux in a Cup knock-out game. Last year they won the 3rd division, so there was a good amount of wind in their sails. Nevertheless, I think we were the better team on the day. By the middle of the second half, we were totally dominating everything: possession football, one-way traffic, missing chances, their goalkeeper was MVP etc. However, as often happens in football – and this is what makes it the most attractive sport in the world – we were actually 2-0 down, courtesy of clinical finishing on the counter-attack. But Euroatlas showed what we are made of by staying concentrated and finally equalising 2-2 first through a spectacular high-quality free-kick from Juan that simply has no place in corporate football, and then a bullet-header from Artur, which was, well, more appropriate. Extra-time was more of the same, and we went to penalties. Quite a climax for the first game of the season. Well, anti-climax perhaps, as we missed 3 and crashed out of the Cup. ‘Bof’ as they say in French…

A week later, we hosted the same Cargolux team at Merl, this time for our first league match. They knew what to expect and so did we. But again, football surprised us. Compared to the week before, the only thing we kept was possession. They had more chances, it was our keeper that was MVP, and it was by no means one-way traffic. We were up against a very well-organised team whose defence we simply could not break down. And on top of that they were very dangerous on the counter-attack. In the end, nobody drew any blood, and the game ended 0-0, both teams picking up their first point in the season. The character and dominance we showed in the first game seemed to have been replaced by a helplessness and lack of creativity that had us all a bit frustrated at the end of it.

But that frustration didn’t last too long, as we headed to Neudorf for this week’s fixture against AVL. Ok, they were pretty bad and gave us loads of space. But would anyone have been surprised if we had failed to take advantage of that? I didn’t think so. We did what we had to do, as Rajoy says, defeating AVL 3-0 in what was a one-sided affair. We could have scored 6 or 8 if all our tete-a-tete chances were put away – we’re going to have to work on that – but perhaps most importantly, they barely created one chance. All-round solid performance. Lots of energy from the midfield, lots of calm, simple passing football, and confidence in the back, particularly from Euge, who let nothing through. This morning, there were rumours that Juan was still running circles round people this morning and Pedro running up and down a line frantically. All in all, a great evening for FC Euroatlas with 3 points in the bag, a clean sheet, and confidence restored.

So far we’ve seen the best of our character in coming back from 2-0 down, we’ve seen lack of creativity in a frustrating 0-0, and we’ve seen proper attacking flare in last night’s 3-0 thumping at Neudorf. Next week we play against Innoclean at  Sandweiler, since the federation has not respected the international break, forcing some of our players to risk injury playing for their club and country three times in a week. You may remember how Innoclean beat us 3-1 last year… It remains to be seen which one of our faces we decide to show next week.

by N. Morais

“The Blues” are back again! The pre-season 2017-2018 started and the players returned from a well-deserved holidays period. Like it happens every year, it’s a complicated period for the coach (Nuno), as the FC Euroatlas players are very well referenced and constantly under the spotlights… Therefore, while the transfer market is not closed, the fans uncertainty about how the squad will look like is always big… Anyway, time goes faster than we think and the real action will arrive soon! Therefore, trainings already started and a first friendly match already took place at Steinsel (6^th September) against the last season champion, FC Luxair, which will play on 1^st division this year.

“The coach is exaggerating, no? Playing against them in the first friendly!? We will face FC BGL next week, but’s that’s the second game and we should naturally increase the level but… We should start smoothly, no?” That was the initial fans reaction to the official pre-season calendar. In fact, a second and more demanding match is foreseen (for the 13^th September) at Mensdorf agains FC BGL, a regular presence in the 1^st division. So, in that sense, the general opinion was that the first match shouldn’t be against such strong team, in order to avoid a defeat that could damage the teams moral…

However, the fans had a very nice surprise! “The Blues” (playing with the alternative red jersey this time) won the match (FC Luxair 2- 5 FC Euroatlas) with a quite expressive score. We must be honest and show a bit of fair play here… And the FC Euroatlas shouldn’t not start dreaming very high at this stage. We must take into account the fact that FC Luxair didn’t present their best 11 during the entire match and, during the last minutes, some FC Euroatlas players joined the opponent team. Another sign of the good spirit and institutional relation between the clubs.

Concerning the match, some points must be retained… First, it seems the “The Blues” continue to enter “with the left foot” in the game. Like it happened quite often last season, the first minutes of the game are still a problem… The team is not concentrated? Doesn’t warm up properly? There must be an explanation… But the fact is that the home team was already winning by 2-0 after 10/15 minutes… After this bad start, FC Euroatlas managed to level the game and the half-time arrived with the score 2-1 for FC Luxair.

The second-half came and the attitude was completely different. All the team sectors were playing closer and FC Euroatlas turned the game in their favour around the 10^th minute… A very positive detail, since FC Luxair was still playing with in “maximum strength”.

Then, already with a score of 2 – 3 for “The Blues”, the home team was forced to do several replacements like we mentioned above and that impacted naturally their performance. So, with no surprise, “The Blues” ended up by scoring two more goals and the final score of 2 -5 was reached.

FC Euroatlas fans hope this good moment to continue next week!

By EM