View Single Post
Old 08-19-2014, 11:28 PM   #517
NoSkillz
College Benchwarmer
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: St. Catharines, Canada
Fri. August 2, 2024

Preseason Friendly
Dover vs. AS Monaco FC (France Ligue 1)
Crabble Athletic Ground, Dover, UK

We have history versus this club, as they were our first ever Champions League opponent. We’d knock them off in the Best Placed Playoff in 2021 8-3 on aggregate. They had a bit of an average season last year, finishing fifth in the league and are destined for Europa League play. They’ve won Ligue 1 nine times (most recently in 2012), were runners up in the 2004 Champions League and are two-time Europa League runners up (2016 and 2021). Once again, we’ll face another former Dover player in DC Abdallaye Kokaina, who just got signed by the French side this year from SK Rapid Wien for £7.5 million.

We start a reasonably strong lineup today, going with Andy Broomes up front alongside Chiquinho. Young left midfielder Felix Hernandez gets his first crack at starting in the preseason after being away on international duty. Newcomer Emerson is on the bench to start but I’ll get him in the lineup at some point tonight. Andrea Rocca is still trying to get match fit so he gets a second consecutive start today.

Dover: 4-4-2 Control
GK - I. Wilke
D - Rafinha, C. Contreras, S. Nasri, S. Loucif
M - F. Hernandez, N. Cairney, A. Rocca, G. Bolis
S - A. Broomes, Chiquinho

Dover 1 - 0 AS Monaco FC
Goals - Andy Broomes (7.6)
Assists - Neil Cairney (7.1)
Man of the Match - Andy Broomes
Other Dover Notables - Salim Loucif (7.1)
Attendance - 22,344

Well, the scoreline doesn’t flatter us but we held 53% of overall possession and had a large 21-4 (5-2 on target) shot advantage. Broomes has been very impressive in preseason and has outplayed both Manuel Lugo and Zoltan Bardi so I’ll be giving him more consideration for future starts in the coming weeks.



Injury Update

-- Young midfielder Felix Hernandez got hurt on a challenge during the game, hurting his elbow. He’ll miss about two weeks but he’s destined for our U18 squad either way.



Transfer News

-- Yeovil Town just got promoted to League 1 and have asked if we’re interested in loaning 17 year old right fullback Eneko Remirez for five months. They are willing to pay his full wages and indicate he’d play a starting role on their club. Yes, I’m interested - I negotiate the deal and ask that they take him for the full season and they accept my terms. Now, it’s up to Remirez.

-- If he goes, we’ll have no right fullbacks on our U18 team so I scout a few young scrubs to fill his spot.



Season Ticket Update

-- We continue to sell a whole bunch of season ticket packages, now exceeding 7400 subscribers. We’re still expected to sell around 7900, which again would be a huge increase over last year’s total.



Next Up

-- In our second last preseason friendly, we welcome Scottish powerhouse Rangers to Crabble Athletic Ground.
NoSkillz is offline   Reply With Quote