Everything was late for this one. We were late, opponents were late, and the ref was even later. The police even had time to come and rescue the guy stuck in the drain. And when the game finally kicked off, you could see sweat glistening on the faces of our own players as if we'd already been through the first half.
The opponents this time were no "New Balance" wearers; before the match they had their little trophies and medals on the sidelines, and even their very own team photographer! We were suitably impressed, but as we always tend to do, we managed to take the game to the opponents.
Neither side got the better of the other in the first 10-20 minutes, as the game went back and forth from our half to the opponents' and back again. We had a gilt-edged chance which Seng put wide, before they took the lead near half-time with the overlapping full-back beating the offside trap and hitting a shot past Jackson.
It was 0-2 early in the second half, as the left and centre backs got into a little of a mix-up, allowing the number 10 (in his flashy yellow boots, no less) to nip in between and tuck home the second. But we never gave up and ShiAn gave us a fighting chance with his 7th goal, although he could have more but for a combination of good goalkeeping and some questionable offside calls.
The overall assessment for the match was that our passes were rather disjointed and we tried too hard to play long balls forward instead of using the midfield as a pivoting point. But as our cap said, we tend to up our game for such opponents who offer up a "challenge".
Let's hope we break the streak for our yellow jerseys next week by raising our game even higher than this. =)))
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
