We start our league season today with a game against old rivals, the British Club at The Cage Sports Park. Games against them has always been tough as they were always physical and bigger than us. We were quietly confident as we had strung some great results leading up to this. We actually conducted a proper team warm up. Something we have not done for a while. Manager named his starting 11 and called for more of the simple pass on the ground and efforts all around.
Somehow, the warmup didn’t work as we struggled to keep the ball. Maybe it was the big pitch or something. Passes went astray and we couldn’t cope with their strong pressing. Initially, our offside trap was working like a treat and they didn’t have much chances. But it finally failed on us, as their striker beat our offside trap and was one on one with Sherman. He took the ball past Sherman and Sherman brought him down. Penalty. But Sherman made amends by saving it and then smothering the ball in the follow up. We were lucky to get away with that. Despite this warning, we still didn’t get into the game. I don’t think we even troubled their goalkeeper as we continued our awful display. Frustrations ran high and we conceded a free kick 25 meters on the left. From that, a direct shot went straight into goal. Heads dropped. Should have stopped that. 1st half ended 1-0.
We really stepped up a gear in the 2nd half. Max went down the left and lofted a teasing cross which Pikachu agonisingly missed by inches. He later clarified that he didn’t expect the defender to miss. Some crisp short passing on the left gave the captain a chance for a through pass to Jerome. He did well to get there but somehow spun the ball wide. Max was still creating a lot of problems for the opponents and was manhandled several times. This one time he did it in the box and was felled. Pundits later said that it was a clever play by him. Penalty!!!!! Captain decided to let the manager take the kick this time. And he duly slotted it in comfortably. 1-1. We continued to be on the upper foot. A cross by Daryl was met by Patrick’s head. He powered the ball towards goal but was tipped onto the cross bar by the goalkeeper fingertips. Bee was unable to get to the end of the rebound. Another cross into the box, this time by Max, wasn’t met properly by Colin. And it flew wide. Critics were saying he’s too short and fat, hence he missed it. British Club were still on the attack. Their movement and accurate passing were causing problems for us. With their physical size, they had no problems shielding the ball from us as we bounced off them. An attack from them on our right created havoc and we couldn’t clear it. Captain got to it in the box and tried to passed it out. But he screwed it up and fell to an oncoming midfielder who slammed the ball into the bottom corner. No chance Sherman. Time was running out and we tried to pile on the pressure but couldn’t get the equaliser. Thus we fell to our first defeat.
Fans were acclaiming that a draw was a fairer result but we let ourselves down. We didn’t passed well enough. We didn’t move well enough. We didn’t take our chances well enough. Let’s reflect on this and make up for it in the remaining 11 games. We were definitely the better side.
