This week, we travelled all the way to Jurong West to play against a young Myanmar team. The game started late as MIU had only 7 by 1715 and the rest of their team slowly streamed in. Patrick was suffering the consequences of forgetting his shorts from last week. We would like to stress to the team of their responsibility for the kit and to ensure that they take care of it. Disciplinary actions will be taken against players who fail to do so.
Manager’s talk before the game was about keeping the structure and shape of the team. Especially at goal kicks and defending. We need the shape of the team to be structured so that if we lose the ball, we have sufficient cover. As we are registering for the Golden League, we should also try to pass the ball around and to start from the back.
The first 10 minutes of the game, we did just that. We were passing around and created several chances but the opponents were fast to the ball and hard. Their number 22 was creating chances with his passing and running. Their forward was fast and strong and gave us a hard time. A swift move down the right from us opened the scoring. Patrick got the ball, passed it into the centre (1-touch) to Lawrence who slipped it in the box (1-touch) for Colin to finish it into the bottom left corner (1-touch). More chances were created but Colin couldn’t finish. Ron blasted one over from a cleared corner. Patrick then again put the ball into the centre for Jansen, who was free but was flagged off-side. Jason was immense at CB, winning everything in the air and tackling strongly. Anything he missed, SK swept it up. Bee was working hard and got himself to the ball first on several occasions. Clarence was his usual self, throwing himself at the opponents. We cope with the attacks and the first half ended 1-0 to us.
Half time talk was about keeping the intensity and shape. We started the 2nd half brightly with more chances in the box, but somehow the ball couldn’t drop nicely for the players. Sherman was more busy now and kept us in the game with several good saves. He even went sprawling around in the box to gather a loose ball. Notable chances in the second half were Lawrence’s volley which went agonizingly wide. Patrick lofted the ball over when a Jason free-kick drop for him in the box. And he missed a clear header from a corner. In the last 10 minutes, the team was defending resolutely and as a team. Final score 1-0.
A good win if you think about it, but we could have closed the game off if we had finished our chances. But our defending was strong and Jason was the key to that. Sherman has definitely stepped up his game over the last few weeks, and we could all see his confidence level was high. This week, we decided Jason was the difference and is the MOM.
We will have a game on National Day eve and we will furnish more details of the registration status via GroupChat once we have it. See you guys next week.
