The (nearly) Comeback Kids

KDU College vs Seri Mersing

My memories of this match are vague but I remember it was a really hot day and that Ramblers were playing two pitches away from us. It was also going to be my last game before I went to England so I wanted to leave Penang with a bang and score lots of goals so I settled with two goals in the 2nd half.

However they were two very necessary goals after the KDU team offside trap went horribly wrong in the first half after Vincent decided to switch with Viet (centre midfield for central defence) thus totally ignoring Neoh's instructions. Viet's speed was lost in the back three and with Vincent not being as mobile as the Vietnamese defender meant that the Sri Mersing strikers were able to sprint through our backline without fear because they knew that Vincent couldn't catch them. He wasn't protected much by two new debutants (Katee and another guy) although the equally new Ling looked half threatening on the left.

Fajar managed to pull a goal back for the blues with an astounding 5 man dribble on the edge of the box which, if caught on camera, would be a contender for polo goal of the year. And this was our overlapping left back! The goal meant that it wasn't game over for us as Neoh sought to make some tactical changes to claw back the 3-1 deficit. The young president decided to revert to a more normal back 4 and shift Fajar to centre midfield with Derek on the right. KDU were also helped with Sri Mersing having little to no substitutes whilst we were energised with 5 young legs.

And what a switch by the young coach as Derek continually found myself up against a full back who didn't know how to handle him. The old man should have added to his interception and blast and side foot finish with a header and a one on one with the keeper which would have clinched the game. Hong's (?) chipped goal also put us in the lead but Seri Mersing had decided two of their more senior players had had enough rest and decided to shunt them on the pitch in order to reverse the tidal wave that was pounding their defence.

In the end, it was so close because after Derek had pulled the ball back from the byline for Chern to score what would surely be the winner turned out to be anything but... the keeper caught his shot easily... threw it out to a midfielder who surged up the pitch... released the striker... who showed the young man of KDU how it should have been done. A winning goal to conceding an equaliser in less than 30 seconds! It was heartbreak for the blue team and Chern in particular!!

KDU College 4 vs 4 Seri Mersing