Chris
Tony Heah - Derek - Viet - Vincent
Chern - Fajar - Fery - Lam
Hung
Tony Heah - Derek - Viet - Vincent
Chern - Fajar - Fery - Lam
Hung
On an ideal day for football, t'was grey and cool with a pitch that had drained through most of the water, there was just two problems. The first was that there was a sticky patch right in the middle of the penalty area. The second was that there were only 10 players for the start of a match against a team that had vanquished far more experienced teams than us - and they had a full complement!
Derek set the scene for a first half that was disjointed and disorganised for the team in blue with his first pass back to the goalkeeper. It went about 10 metres too wide and out for a corner! The rest of the 34 minutes didn't get any better - Viet's boots slowly literally crumbled, our midfield were hopelessly outnumbered whenever they were in possession, Lam was stranded on the left as was Hung up front and I've not even mentioned the goals yet! We were fortunate that Barcelona failed to take their opportunities after rounding Chris twice - the first time, he shot in the side netting and the second needed a brillant clearance from Vincent.
Both Barcelona goals turned out to be very simple (no Messi magic needed!) - a high cross dropped into the six yard area, nobody challenged an unmarked striker for it - and well strikers don't tend to miss empty goals from six yards out. The second goal was a fatal mistake too - Chong had come onto the pitch by now but one of his free kicks went straight to an orange shirt who promptly returned the ball into our goal. Our best chance fell to our overlapping stand-in right back Tony (usually a goalkeeper) but he kicked mud instead of the ball and injured himself in the process.
Half time: KDU College 2-0 down.
The coach lambasted the team at half time and made several changes in the hope of clawing themselves back into the game. Viet saw himself dropped to the bench, Chong in the centre of defence with Derek and a combination of Lam and Ren on the left wing. Tony was to be our Didier Drogba up front and give the defenders something big to think about with the fleet footed Hung alongside him.
Well there was a dramatic improvement in the 2nd half from KDU with the defence having a blend of speed, tough tacklers and experience along the line. It wasn't quite Manchester United clean sheet material but it was a lot more steady that in the previous 35 minutes with a more effective offside trap - although there was still the need for the odd goalline clearance! Sadly we unable to completely shut out Barcelona as the striker beat Chris to a long ball and round him to add to their earlier tally.
But this time it wasn't all bad news for our one and only spectator Rebecca. Her near namesake, Ren had a flying start to the half, culminating in a great goal after pressuring the defender and looping a shot over the Chinese Cech from the edge of the area. Strangely Ren's performance completely nosedived after this goal but then he wasn't the only one.
Barcelona had noticed that whilst Fery had neat dribbling skills, he couldn't release the ball to anyone in a blue shirt and swarmed him every time he had the ball. With one of the central midfielders marked out of the game, it was left to his partner Fajar to control the game. And the young Indonesian nearly scored the goal of the season with a now characteristic mazy crossfield dribble that culminated with a shot that went right across the Chinese Cech and into the bottom corner - only for the defender to clear it off the muddy line!
Even the positional switch of an experienced/old Derek and tired Fajar couldn't draw another goal for the blue shirts of KDU. Chern & Fery came close to connecting with a deep cross and the latter also had a long range shot but the second half ended in a satisfactory 1-1 result.
Final Score: Barcelona 3 vs 1 KDU College
However I would like to point out one thing that occured several times in the second half and was concerning for me. I think it happened primarily on the left but there were definitely times when players seemed to be totally daydreaming whenever the ball was in their part of the pitch. There were times when players got a simple pass from a teammate but they were really slowly to react to receive it and I'm sure it wasn't a physical thing - it was just lack of concentration and nothing more.
Please concentrate 100% on the match when you are playing.
Derek set the scene for a first half that was disjointed and disorganised for the team in blue with his first pass back to the goalkeeper. It went about 10 metres too wide and out for a corner! The rest of the 34 minutes didn't get any better - Viet's boots slowly literally crumbled, our midfield were hopelessly outnumbered whenever they were in possession, Lam was stranded on the left as was Hung up front and I've not even mentioned the goals yet! We were fortunate that Barcelona failed to take their opportunities after rounding Chris twice - the first time, he shot in the side netting and the second needed a brillant clearance from Vincent.
Both Barcelona goals turned out to be very simple (no Messi magic needed!) - a high cross dropped into the six yard area, nobody challenged an unmarked striker for it - and well strikers don't tend to miss empty goals from six yards out. The second goal was a fatal mistake too - Chong had come onto the pitch by now but one of his free kicks went straight to an orange shirt who promptly returned the ball into our goal. Our best chance fell to our overlapping stand-in right back Tony (usually a goalkeeper) but he kicked mud instead of the ball and injured himself in the process.
Half time: KDU College 2-0 down.
The coach lambasted the team at half time and made several changes in the hope of clawing themselves back into the game. Viet saw himself dropped to the bench, Chong in the centre of defence with Derek and a combination of Lam and Ren on the left wing. Tony was to be our Didier Drogba up front and give the defenders something big to think about with the fleet footed Hung alongside him.
Well there was a dramatic improvement in the 2nd half from KDU with the defence having a blend of speed, tough tacklers and experience along the line. It wasn't quite Manchester United clean sheet material but it was a lot more steady that in the previous 35 minutes with a more effective offside trap - although there was still the need for the odd goalline clearance! Sadly we unable to completely shut out Barcelona as the striker beat Chris to a long ball and round him to add to their earlier tally.
But this time it wasn't all bad news for our one and only spectator Rebecca. Her near namesake, Ren had a flying start to the half, culminating in a great goal after pressuring the defender and looping a shot over the Chinese Cech from the edge of the area. Strangely Ren's performance completely nosedived after this goal but then he wasn't the only one.
Barcelona had noticed that whilst Fery had neat dribbling skills, he couldn't release the ball to anyone in a blue shirt and swarmed him every time he had the ball. With one of the central midfielders marked out of the game, it was left to his partner Fajar to control the game. And the young Indonesian nearly scored the goal of the season with a now characteristic mazy crossfield dribble that culminated with a shot that went right across the Chinese Cech and into the bottom corner - only for the defender to clear it off the muddy line!
Even the positional switch of an experienced/old Derek and tired Fajar couldn't draw another goal for the blue shirts of KDU. Chern & Fery came close to connecting with a deep cross and the latter also had a long range shot but the second half ended in a satisfactory 1-1 result.
Final Score: Barcelona 3 vs 1 KDU College
However I would like to point out one thing that occured several times in the second half and was concerning for me. I think it happened primarily on the left but there were definitely times when players seemed to be totally daydreaming whenever the ball was in their part of the pitch. There were times when players got a simple pass from a teammate but they were really slowly to react to receive it and I'm sure it wasn't a physical thing - it was just lack of concentration and nothing more.
Please concentrate 100% on the match when you are playing.
Anyway, I should have score for KDU. This will make the different than. :(
ReplyDeleteMy MOTM Vote goes to Chris for his fine display. He makes several good saves throughout the match. Keep it out.
ReplyDeleteMy vote goes to vincent for his effort. He could run more than everyone and I think he succeeded to be a real defender.
ReplyDeletefrom FERY
My vote goes to fajar. Kept on pushing the team and kept on feeding the ball to the strikers. Superb performance!
ReplyDelete