2026-02-01, 06:49 PM - Word count:
After years of work, I was finally getting to pull on the Liffeyside jersey for the first time, and it would be in front of the home crowd. Sure, it was only a friendly pre-season match against Reykjavik, but it was still the moment that I'd been working towards ever since I first went pro. The butterflies in my stomach were working overtime as we walked out to the pitch for the start of the match, and they didn't settle down until several minutes in. We kept the pressure on Reykjavik for most of the first ten or so minutes of the match, and I managed to make a few passes to set up decent shots and got a good shot off myself in the 17th minute. However, it would be the visitors who struck first when they got on a rush and Mikko Rashford II blew a long shot past Snor Lax. Just a few minutes later, Reykjavik put a shot off the post that went straight to Tre Quartista near the goal, who put it in to double the visiting team's lead.
Coming out of the half, we were still down 2-0. I'd had a solid first half with some chances, but it was more about getting settled in so that I wouldn't be so amped up when the actual regular season began. In the 50th minute, we managed to get on the board when Carolien Miedema took a pass in front of the net and converted to make it a one-goal match, then kept pressing only a minute later. A goal kick from the Reykjavik keeper got picked off and the ball went to Andres Pedrillo. I knew my job on this play and curled back to get the ball, then fired a shot off my left foot. The keeper dove for it but couldn't get there, and the match was tied with my first goal in a Liffeyside uniform. Less than a minute after that, we took our first lead when Chicken McTendie buried a rebound just in front of the goal, and we still weren't done.
Early in the 58th minute, we had a throw-in on the left side and Alex Stain got the ball, passing it up to me in the gap near the top of the box. My shot wasn't the hardest, but the defender fruitlessly tried to block it and ended up deflecting it into their own net. In the 61st, I found Miedema coming up the middle with a pass to make the score 5-2. In the span of around 12 minutes, we'd gone from being down by two goals to being up by three. Reykjavik got a goal less than a minute later to make it 5-3, but I secured my first-ever professional hat trick off the extension of a corner, managing to find a little space in between the defenders and putting a pass by the goalie to make the score 6-3, which ended up being the final score. I still didn't know how this had happened, and the goals wouldn't count in the scoring race, but I'd had possibly the best first game of anyone in the SSL in a long time.
Coming out of the half, we were still down 2-0. I'd had a solid first half with some chances, but it was more about getting settled in so that I wouldn't be so amped up when the actual regular season began. In the 50th minute, we managed to get on the board when Carolien Miedema took a pass in front of the net and converted to make it a one-goal match, then kept pressing only a minute later. A goal kick from the Reykjavik keeper got picked off and the ball went to Andres Pedrillo. I knew my job on this play and curled back to get the ball, then fired a shot off my left foot. The keeper dove for it but couldn't get there, and the match was tied with my first goal in a Liffeyside uniform. Less than a minute after that, we took our first lead when Chicken McTendie buried a rebound just in front of the goal, and we still weren't done.
Early in the 58th minute, we had a throw-in on the left side and Alex Stain got the ball, passing it up to me in the gap near the top of the box. My shot wasn't the hardest, but the defender fruitlessly tried to block it and ended up deflecting it into their own net. In the 61st, I found Miedema coming up the middle with a pass to make the score 5-2. In the span of around 12 minutes, we'd gone from being down by two goals to being up by three. Reykjavik got a goal less than a minute later to make it 5-3, but I secured my first-ever professional hat trick off the extension of a corner, managing to find a little space in between the defenders and putting a pass by the goalie to make the score 6-3, which ended up being the final score. I still didn't know how this had happened, and the goals wouldn't count in the scoring race, but I'd had possibly the best first game of anyone in the SSL in a long time.
<center><img src='https://i.imgur.com/X6cSRMC.jpeg' border='0' alt='user posted image' /></center><br><center>Sig by Pandar</center>
