Match report S7 game on 22nd May 2011 by Koh Sunday night game in unstable weather but the red rain warning was canceled by then and we went ahead for head on head against the league leading team Spreme. I dont know how many showed up at 6:45 for 8:00 game as Justin instructed by e-mail. Hope Justin didnt have to do warm up alone for more than 1 hour. We started the game with Belgium in goal mouth(Hat off!), Garrow and Shiu on the defense line, Dave in the center, Howard on right wing and Alessio on left, Sandro up front. the first half of the game, we played well-disciplined passing game with good tempo and had middle range trial by Alessio, Sandro and Shiu. Given the pitch condition was not ideal because of the heavy rain in the morning, our strategy was taking shot whenever we got space and time in their area and test the keeper. Our trial to play passing game seemed working well. We spread and swing the ball, retained control of the game most of the time. Occasional individual trial especially by Alessio added some accent in the game and our defense line was as solid as usual. Justin came in for Sandro around 20 min, Koh came in for Alessio 5 min later. S7 has offside unlike M7. Their restart after our offside was quite quick and tested our defender with fast long ball targeting their forward a few times. We need to be ready to handle their counter attack a bit better when we play S7 games. Half time, still 0-0. Kett in for Shiu, Vince for Howard in the second half. We started the second half strong. We still controlled the game well but somehow started losing some concentration. Minor mistakes in passing and trapping were seen on the pitch partially due to the bad pitch condition too. About 10 min in the second half, one of their player found a chance when our defenders had trouble in exchanging pass in front of our goal. The striker picked up the ball and tried to slot it into the net. It hit the post but the reflection rolled into the goal despite Marteen's effort to scoop it out. 10 min later, almost suddenly, from the halfway line, Spreme's Fei Chai (means "fat boy" but not Henry Leung) took a long shot and the ball went over Marteen, who was a little bit stepping out of the goal, and went into the net. 2-0. Around 25min, we finally fought back. Koh bring the ball up along the side line, cut in, and "Bang, Bang, Baaang" as our coach Justine told us to do in the pre-game speech. It grazed head of a defender, slightly changed the course and found the net. We tried our best to score equalizer but not that much time left. The 3rd loss after 4 successive win, we are placed 6th in the table. As dave mentioned after the game, let’s personally assess what went well, what went wrong and what we could have done. If this Spreme cad lead the league, we can do it too. Although we are placed 6th in the league, the gap between us is really really tiny. Going back to winning road and aiming to lead the league is not a dream story at all. Let’s look up and get prepared for the coming game on Sunday. Before that, see you all at the Trafalgar for the champion league final on Saturday night. Go Barca Go! koh
