Goodfellas travelled to Ho Man Tin on an early Saturday for a Champions League
match against Men United. Fairly good weather, a half-decent pitch, if a little too dry and bumpy, and Fellas/ Panther support set the stage.
Arriving early our warm up time became extended as the opponent waited for their 7th man in order to not have to forfeit the game. After a rather dry pep talk by yours truly that did not fail to mention that this was going to be the last Fellas league game for Chris, and Justin's pledge to score goals in order to continue in the Champions League, we started with a delay that would later result in an unwelcome shortening of the second half.
Mullinger
Shui Ikes Flo SebS
Heinrich Leung Howard Justin Belgium
Cedric Leo
Sub (then): Garrow
We played it safe in the first minutes, containing our excitement of playing against 7 opponents. As they filled up their numbers, we gathered momentum and pushed forward, with our midfielders giving it a few good tries with shots on goal. Eventually a cross by Shui found Howard who tapped in for 1:0.
Game continued with the Fellas comfortably keeping the ball in the opponent's half for most of the time. Our back four stayed back (good English, an) while everybody else maintained pressure up front . Belgium had a few good runs down the line, and it didn't take long after our first goal for him to serve Cedric beautifully who made it
2:0.
Around that time more subs (David, earlier, Chris, Bear) and spectators arrived, and as Garrow helped Chris' parents get comfortable in the VIP area,
Halftime saw the following changes:
Bear on for SebS
David on for Howard
Chris on for Belgium
Hopes were high for Chris to make his last league game a memorable one. Fellas kept pushing forward, managing to keep the ball close to the opponent's box with inspired attacks. While a reserve Kettz did his best to document the game on his camera, we kept on scrambling close to the opponents goal, coming closer and closer to scoring. Finally Leo managed to find a loophole to score his first in the Legal League.
3:0
10 minutes or so into the second half, Cedric went down after a tackle and unfortunately stayed down, having, as we found out later, dislocated his shoulder.
Belgium on for Cedric
15 minutes or so into the second half another change: SebS on for Shui
and a few minutes or so a mistake by the recently subbed on led to the opponent striker to find his way through our defense to give them a consolation goal.
3:1
The spiel continued for what felt like 2 minutes and the officials called it a game, effectively having refed one half and a half. Or so. It was the late arrival of the 7th Men United man that caused the initial delay, and with a full first half, not much time was left for the second - much to the dismay for a few of us.
3:1 was the final result and it was necessary for our goalkeeper to inquire if we had actually won the game, given a slight sense of disappointment among us. We did mourn the much feared temporary loss of our French striqueur, the lack of converting a few of our fine touches up front into goals, the unnecessary mistake that lead to the late goal we conceded, and of course the violent reduction of game time.
But win we did and Saturday night saw Chris off in style with a celebration that didn't have any shortage in drinks, games and singing into the wee hours.
