No Shame In Defeat

KDU vs USM

A match at USM's stadium is always a pleasure because of the mint condition of the pitch and the feel of professionalism with stadium overlooking the green turf. Sadly the running track makes every long clearance difficult to recover but it turned out to work in our favour as it turned out our opponents were Malaysian Cup competitors - otherwise known as a fully professional squad!

With this in mind, it was a good thing that Ramblers players (and our Butterfly goalkeeping coach, Tony) were there to bolster the playing squad because USM were the real thing. Their two touch passes left us feeling dizzy and they attacked both sides of our defence with vigour and energy. Whilst Viet was 'coping' on the right, his fellow Vietnamese player Duc was struggling on the left with the absurd pace that the right winger had. This meant that Fajar had to work overtime to cover his fellow international player. However the international coach, Derek, was doing his own share of hard work in midfield with the Langkawi boy, Poay alongside him. Whilst they were able to string a neat set of passes together, they were unable to get near striking distance of the goal.

Whilst Vick and Henrik were unsuprisingly struggling up front to get any service, it was less of a surprise to see USM take the lead. A poor clearance saw the ball curled back into the centre for the striker to sidefoot from the penalty spot with plenty of space. It was a soft goal to concede and it didn't get any better when the left winger hit the accelerator to move past the speedy Keong and Adrian to cut the ball back for the deep running midfielder to slot home after the coach was caught standing and shouting. However a two goal loss after 35 minutes against a team of such quality was nothing to be ashamed of. Indeed they should have had more were it not for inaccurate finishing and excellent goalkeeping.

The second half saw Heng & Jimmy join the fold upfront and for the first time in the game, we were able to make headway into the USM defensive third with some element of control. After neat interplay between Jimmy, Heng and Derek, the best KDU chance of the match fell to our right winger Chern (see photo above). Sadly he put the ball wide and with it our only decent chance of the match.

With more changes than an England friendly, the match saw a completely different team finish the game but strikingly with only one more goal conceded. A corner was swung in and Jimmy's attacking instincts were switched on to nod the ball past his own goalkeeper! Whilst the rest of the match was concentrated in the navy part of the field, the boys in blue were able to hold on for a very credible three goal loss as they defended for their lives.

KDU 0 vs 3 USM