MATCH DAY - 09042000

SUNDAY FC 4 - OPPONENTS 2

PLAYERS : 1 - Paul ; 3 - Yap ; 4 - Ryan ; 5 - Kway ; 6 - Fairoz ; 7 - SiRong ; 8 - SzeHua ; 9 - Hong Pin ; 10 - Choung ; 14 - Chuwen ; 15 - Daryl ; 17 - Almeric ; 22 - Jason

GOAL SCORERS : Choung ; Daryl ; Almeric ; SiRong

MATCH REPORT by Ryan

Today's match against Ryan's friend's team was a match of many firsts. Not only was it the first time this year that Daryl played for us, it was our first win in countless matches. We won 4-2.

The venue was at a rather lengthy public pitch at Telok Blangah Crescent, which required many in between match substitutions amongst ourselves to sustain the whole match. The best part is that we played with ten men a side, as the opponents had only ten men. Ok back to the match:

Once again it was a sorry tale of fruitless domination as we failed to convert our domination into goals. Then, once again we fell behind to the opponents' rare genuine chance on goal. With due respect to the opponents, it was a rather well taken free kick goal which came from a dubious
decision actually.

After that we launched wave after wave of attacks in search of the equalizing goal. Our efforts finally paid off when Brandon (Choung) put behind all previous week's misses, dispossessed a defender of the ball at the edge of the penalty area and coolly lobbed the ball over the goalkeeper. This spurred us to look for the lead as we continued our relentless attacks on the opponents' goal, with Alvin (SzeHua) coming closest as he came in from the left and drove the ball over the keeper and also the bar as the half ended 1-1.

The second half started in the same fashion as we ended the first. After fending off early attacks from the opponents, we finally took the lead when Daryl pounced on a poor goal kick clearance and scored from long range. The goal seemed to kill off the opponents' enthusiasm opening the floodgates for us as we made them pay with two more quick goals. Almeric ended a good run down the right and with the keeper off his line, slotted the ball into the back of the net through the near post. The fourth was a combination of the twins Alvin and Kelvin. A back headed pass from Alvin found older brother, Kelvin who latched onto the pass to put a superb right-footed lob over the keeper, which put it into contention for goal of the match. Unfortunately, we can't seem to recover from the celebration and the opponents scored almost immediately from the restart. Their goal however seemed dubious as the our defenders called for off side.

The goal just seem to inspire us to score more. We launched wave after wave of attack. Everyone wanted to score, even Fairoz came in for Brandon and played striker, while the defence had nothing much to do as the opponents just can't break through the midfield. Hong Pin, who played goalkeeper for the second half, even had time to attempt to bury a grasshopper that Chuwen caught! There were countless attempts on the opponents' goal, Fairoz had a curling corner that grazed across the face of goal, Ryan had a shot tipped over by the keeper, Kelvin put the ball wide with only the post to beat after Paul unselfishly squared the ball from the right and Paul saw his spectacular back header attempt hit the bar with the keeper totally beaten. Our woeful finishing was best reflected by the last and probably the easiest of chances when Kway failed to control the ball in front of goal from a cross from Kelvin and the ball rolled to the grateful keeper.

A win finally, that's why this report is so long, instead of two sentence reports. Hope this is the beginning of even longer match reports ahead.