AKITA wins second match 26 - 2 against Sun Hoi Lin

As the pitch was available when the AKITA team arrived prior to the match, this was a good chance to train a little bit before the match. As the opposition was a school boy team upgraded to the senior league, this meant that with an average age over 30 against opponent most likely around 16, the AKITA team was the twice as old. Quite rapidly the result proved subject to little doubt. Nevertheless both teams make sure that they played seriously and as a proof of respect, the AKITA team make sure of not giving any free goal. At the half time score was 14 - 0, AKITA shooting was not as accurate as could have been but defense was showing just the right commitment. in 25 minutes, Markus only needed to do one save on a shoot from the distance. The older team proved that they could still run by conceding zero fast break in the whole match. In the second half, full credit has to be given to number 7 and 13 of the Sun Hoi Lin team as they both managed to score a goal. A deserved reward for their efforts. At the end of the match both teams posed together for a photo demonstrating the good spirit of this encounter. As the AKITA reflected afterwards, after demonstrating they could win against a team half their age, they would relish the challenge to try to do the same against a team double their age. Gols: Hans 5, David 5, Yoann 3, PA 3, Alex 3, Ulf 2, Markus R. 2, Lars 1, Norbert 1, Rolf 1

1st Match and 1st Win for the AKITA Team against HKIE

On Saturday 15th, November the AKITA Handball team defeated the Hong Kong Institute of Education 24 -12 (13 - 5). AKITA started with a strong seven, from left to right: Markus (17), Norbert (10), Ulf (20), Hans (14), Guillaume (3) with Alex (9) on the line and Wan (28) in the goal. The HKIE team won the toss and started with the ball. They lost no time and scored on their first action with a wing shot as the AKITA defense was still settling in. This immediately woke up the blue team that scored 4 unanswered goal with Hans scoring the first AKITA goal ever! After some good combination and cross between the half bases, AKITA was leading 6 - 3 on the 12th minute. The team was finding its rythm and and started few changes. On the right wing, Guillaume was replaced by his own brother PA (11). On the left wing Lars (78) and Yoann (5) entered. The AKITA team was playing it size advantage and only conceded 2 goals more by half time. One on a masked free kick and the other on a penalty. During that time, the goals were still adding with contribution from all positions. It was becoming obvious that the HKIE team was losing concentration as they were under pressure. At the half time, the score was 13 - 5. After a short coaching speech, the AKITA team was back on the pitch and commited to put the match away as soon as possible. Alex (9) was leaving his place to Markus (17) during the attack and Yoann (5) was on the left wing. The score moved to 20 - 6 in 10 minutes with Norbert scoring a powerful shot from the distance when referees were calling for slow play and Yoann answering an HKIE free kick goal by 2 successive hard fought goals. It was time for more changes for the gwailo team with Guillaume (3) back on the court and Rolf (12) getting some minutes under his belt after his ankle injury in the previous training. As the match seemed under control for AKITA the HKIE team tried to push forward engaging as fast as possible and even scoring few goals as the AKITA players were still in the other half. Too little too late here and the AKITA team could continue its turnover with Markus S. (17) participating in his first handball match ever and Lars (78) managing to get the 2nd 2minutes of the Match with 5 minutes to go on a good effort to stop a fast break. Hans (14) closed the scoring for AKITA with his 6th personal goal but as the team was coming back too slowly the HKIE team managed to have 3 players facing Wan with no defender. Wan had made some fine save including some on fast break but this was too many there and the final score was then 24 - 12. As a conclusion, it was a solid performance by AKITA with some good display in attack where goals were well distributed. (Hans 6, PA 5, Norbert 4, Alex 4 including 2/2 on penalties, Markus 2, Yoann 2, Ulf 1). In defense, there was little solution for the HKIE team as soon as the team was able to avoid the fast breaks. This was an ideal start for the AKITA campaign and will hopefully allow for further improvements as the season goes by.

3 days to first match

On Saturday, the AKITA Handball Team will have its first ever official match. We have the chance to play on the same court as our training court and with comparable light conditions. We are playing the last match of the day starting at 8:15pm, we got few pointers on the teams in our league but as the program is in Chinese we don't really now yet which team it is... We will discover them during warm up! Thanks to few training matches with friendly teams, we now have a little bit of experience together but are clearly very far from what we would be expecting. In our last training against YMCA, we managed to get few circulation of balls and goals but also need to communicate more in defense and be more consistent in attack. Focus will be a key element on Saturday if we want to win the match. Also our roster is still moving a little, we hope to have as many people as possible on Saturday to put on the match sheet to ensure we don't get tired. I don't know for you but I can't wait!! P.A. (11)

Our colors

The Akita Handballteam will play this season in blue and yellow shirts, with black shorts. The keepers will wear red/white shirts. So why do we have these colors? There had been a biiiiig discussion among all french and german teammembers, as no party wanted to look like the national-team of the other nation respectively. After several fights, we agreed to chose colors that represent all of us: as we are from Europe, we agreed to take the colors of the European Union, which are, of course, blue and yellow. Sadly, our shirts do not contain any stars. And, as we have a chinese player now, we might be in trouble again, haha. And by the way, all this blue looks very french..... We hope to post some photos of our lovely shirts and all the handsome teammembers very soon! At this place, a big thank you for sponsorship of the shirts to Mr. Ho! Do tse, Sai!

The first Chinese Player!

Wow, now the AKITA Handballteam has its first chinese member! His name is Wan, and he is a Goalie. He played with Ulf the last season, in league 1. After a lot of persuasion- work, he agreed to play with us this year. As the position of Goalie was our weakest point, we are very happy to get a very good second keeper besides our Markus, who, by the way, is injured at the moment. So: welcome and thank you, Wan!