Sete Ties in First Division Debut

Well, we finally made it!! Today was our first game in the first division and we started on the road against Central of Caruaru. Our group is the "Group of Death" in the Pernambucano A1, it has the champion of the A1 last year, Sport Recife, the second place team of A1, Central, the team we played, Salgueiro, the champion of A2, and us (Sete De Setembro Esporte Clube), second place A2. Before we walked on the field we already faced problems, as a good bit of our players were not properly registered with the federation and could not play. We used a few players from "juniores", the youth team (17-19 year olds mostly). (Concurrent with the games of the A1 is the "Juniores", were the teams have their younger players to develop.) The game started poorly, we were down 1-0 in the first two minutes. The team composed themselves, played the way that got them in the first division, and managed a goal before the end of the first half. The second half was tightly contested, with both teams having good chances but not being able to capitalize. Sete played a man up after a red card for about 25 minutes, but the game ended 1-1.

I am pretty happy with a tie. First, we are playing in a harder division. We were playing the runner up last year. We were playing without many of our regular players, most of them getting their first professional game time, and we were playing on the road. Nothing to be ashamed of. If this team can start like this, I feel good about the season.