“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