Match Report proudly presented by Creating RaRa!
Weather: Stormy
Temp: 31
(Game with linesmen)
A day when Team SESC had slightly more than one third of the squad absent for various reasons. To add salt to the wound, half of the team reached the venue late.
The weather was dodgy with the Lightning Warning System went off for a couple of times before and towards the end of the first half.
Match kickoff slightly beyond the scheduled time and both teams had equal amout of possession for about 15min.
A freekick outside the box awarded to U4U and the ball was struck beautifully against the bar and back into play but their wide man who got to the ball first could not control it down as it trickered away from him.
Beyond that, there were a couple of soft freekicks given to Man U4U at the edge of the area much to the displeasure of the SESC bench.
At 35th min, a foul just outside of the penalty area after Simon had been adjudged to have his foot raised too high and contacting U4U's incoming player. Their number 26 brilliantly placed the ball with pace into the far corner of the net where Giles had no answer to, U4U 1-0 up.
There was a couple of saves made by Giles who looked assured. A few hopeful punts were rained towards Simon's direction but could not turn into much danger. The half ended 1-0 in favour of the SG Red Devils and shaded it slightly in terms of possession.
Second half resumed with the team in red trying to do more work upfront but some 5 minutes later against the run of play, a counter attack found the Devils back-peddling when a pass from Tim found Derrick odds on to score until his shot came off a defenders hand in the box. The referee did not consult the linesman and pointed to the spot without much hesitation.
Jun Kai stepped up to the spot but Nadd took the ball and the ultimate responsibility to tuck it into the far right corner of the net to put Team SESC on level term. He celebrated the goal with a trademark Tim Cahill corner flag punching, 1-1!
5 mintutes after the jubilation to the SG Toffees, the Red Devils looked determined to restore the lead and they did just that with a neat and simple buildup from their left and a through ball played between Kok Hao & Vincent, presented their striker a chance to slot it pass the helpless on coming Giles.
Another 8 minutes later, the Red Devils found the gap on the right of Team SESC defence and this time a shot from their winger was parried by Giles brilliantly but the ball found their winger on the left to slot into the empty net, 3-1 U4U.
Then U4U seemed to smell blood, their midfield clicked yet again finding space on the right again and took a shot from outside the box and made it 4-1.
At this point, a couple of substitutions was made by Fahmy in hope to close up the scoreline by throwing in experienced Joshua and Jalil. There was a moment when Jalil got the ball and coolly slid it into the path of Nadd who's shot was well saved by the U4U custodian. Joshua too had his moment when he opted to take a freekick outside if the box but could not trouble the keeper.
With 2 minutes of normal time to go, Joshua collected the ball from Jesper and seemed to be on the losing ground in terms of pace but he used his body to shield it away from the incoming marker and managed to find his balance to cross the ball from the byline and almost found Jalil. Instead it was a diving header clearance by their "Fellaini inspired" Faiz Smalling. Those kind of situation could have easily been an own goal but credit to the defender for the bravery and astute defending.
The resulting corner with just seconds away from the final whistle, Giles jogged up to the box hopeful of getting something at the end, and indeed the corner found his head but the pace of the ball did not allow him to divert it goalwards. Game ended 4-1 to Man U4U who remained unbeaten in the league and Team SESC's successive defeat.
They now need to quickly analyse what went wrong and get themselves ready for the first EPL Fan Club League's Merseyside Derby clash in the following Saturday!
