We played against Red Hill old boys at Ping Yi Secondary School. We had 24 players signed up this week and only 18 players got to play.
Our opponent was a bunch of veterans with an African player who we later found out played for a professional league team in China.
The referee for this match turned out really late and we only had our kick-off around 5.45pm.
During our pre-match talks, we were trying to rectify the mistakes from our previous game and how we can improve. This week’s focus was about our team attacking play.
We started with the following players at kick-off:-
Keeper: JP
Defense: Jerome / SK / Ben / Bee
Midfield: Harold / Lawrence / Jansen / Andy / Matt
Forward: Colin
We started the game rather slowly. Our opponent seemed to have a game plan when playing us. They were spraying passes around in the middle and looking to send their African striker through at any given opportunity presented. This big and powerful guy was a handful for our defenders. Due to his experience, he managed to find our weakest area which is on the left side of our defense. Jerome was having a torrid time facing the lanky guy. Our left midfield didn’t manage to provide any cover for Jerome and very quickly he was tired out with his constant running and chasing off the ball. The scariest part was that striker was not even playing to his full capability.
The busiest of the defense was JP, he made numerous saves denying the striker and their attacking midfielders. We finally conceded our first on the 17th minutes and followed by our second 5 minutes later. Their good inter-changing plays were too hot to handle and we totally deserved to be 2 goals down by the 23rd minutes.
During the half time team talk, we were trying to rectify the areas that we need to step up. I wanted the team to inject more paces to their game to counter the opponent’s dominance in the midfield as we have given them too much respect partly due to their age.
Our game plan in the second half seems to work. Our players have been working harder closing down spaces and pressing more intensively. We had our breakthrough goal 8 minutes after the restart. Harold scored a brilliant goal after some good passing with our attacking midfielders.
Lawrence got into the score sheet from the spot and he duly converted. The penalty came about after some inter-changing plays between Yiong and Patrick which resulted in the former being fouled in the box. Up step Lawrence and he hasn’t missed from 12 yards since he started playing again after his long lay-off. That was our equalizer goal on the 11th minutes in the second half.
Our joys were pretty short lived. They opponent scored 3 successive goals on the 12th, 31st and 32nd in the second half. The lanky striker completed his hatrick with ease and he has been the constant thorn to our defense. We have no answers to his precision strikes and pace.
Our last consolidation goal came before the final whistle. Colin converted an easy tap-in after Harold crossed after beating 2 defenders from the right.
The final result was 3-5 to Red Hills Old Boys.
The man of the match went to JP for his multiple saves in the game. We could have been 5 goals down if not for his heroics saves in the first half. Well done JP.
