Sunday, July 31, 2005
Match Review 2
Match 2, Winter Season, vs Scotch Titans
Following last week's shocker and the inaugural match review during the week, there was perhaps a sense of mission about this week's match. Scotch Titans had a tricky playmaker and if we could stop him, we'd have basically cut off that team's arms and legs as well.
Simon scored the first goal and what resulted was a dour contest for the next 10 minutes as both teams were happy to let the game develop slowly until somebody made a decisive move. When Simon subbed back on for the late stages of the half, he upped the midfield workrate, driving the ball forward with Henry providing support up front and to the right. Dave was holding the ball well and Quoc and Sanji were keeping their main player at bay in defence. Simon's hard work was responsible for our lead at the break, with Sanji unlucky to concede a ball that he'd unluckily deflected (having covered it) into the goals.
It was time to up the ante after the break. Quoc pushed forward and was holding his customary two defenders off, laying off the ball to either Simon or Henry, who kept providing the Scotch Titans' some massive headaches up front. Dave pressed forward with some nice stop-start runs down the left wing, but was let down by poor finishing all game. We were helped by their shit players, which was basically everybody besides their best player. The big guy wasn't doing a lot up front. The fast guy had bad ball control. The big defender at the back committed too easily and the goalie had absolutely no fucking idea whatsoever. In fact, their main player had to do most of their work and following instructions to just stick and don't commit on him, he tired quickly, all aided by Quoc and Simon's numerous hacks on his shins.
When he lay on the ground after a painful chop by Simon, it was the signal for the mass attack in the final minutes, as Quoc held the ball on the goal arc, feinting to shoot a few times and cheekily tapping the ball past the keeper for a classy goal. Henry carefully lined up an inch perfect free kick into the top left hand corner that bamboozled their already very confused goalie. By the time Sanji capped off a blanket job on their strikers with a thunderbolt from 15m out, we were running riot with some memorable goals and finally, some killer instinct and spirit back. And the smiles at the end of the game typified what was a classy all round, clinical performance.
But let's not get carried away with that win. We've had that scoreline against this team for the 2nd time. And if we're serious about getting into division 1, we need to punish teams like that by working on making more space. It was a better performance in this regard, particularly Henry providing an option down the right but there were still times when the player pushing the ball forward had to stop because of no options. But in fairness, it was still a great win, only marred by a a bizarre charity penalty against Derek for holding the ball too long. Much to our disgust and non-surprise really, given we had the dickhead ref for the second consecutive week.
However, the only downside in our control was no-show no. 334 of Heng to soccer. Heng, you bloody wom, fuck you! Even after team management has busted your ass for being a wom and Dave calling you the night before as a reminder, you still don't even call to let us know you're going to the jungle for the day. Fuck you! Disappointing.
Scoreline: 8-3
Goals: Simon 3, Quoc 3, Sanji, Henry
Man of the match: Simon
Villian of the day: Heng
Following last week's shocker and the inaugural match review during the week, there was perhaps a sense of mission about this week's match. Scotch Titans had a tricky playmaker and if we could stop him, we'd have basically cut off that team's arms and legs as well.
Simon scored the first goal and what resulted was a dour contest for the next 10 minutes as both teams were happy to let the game develop slowly until somebody made a decisive move. When Simon subbed back on for the late stages of the half, he upped the midfield workrate, driving the ball forward with Henry providing support up front and to the right. Dave was holding the ball well and Quoc and Sanji were keeping their main player at bay in defence. Simon's hard work was responsible for our lead at the break, with Sanji unlucky to concede a ball that he'd unluckily deflected (having covered it) into the goals.
It was time to up the ante after the break. Quoc pushed forward and was holding his customary two defenders off, laying off the ball to either Simon or Henry, who kept providing the Scotch Titans' some massive headaches up front. Dave pressed forward with some nice stop-start runs down the left wing, but was let down by poor finishing all game. We were helped by their shit players, which was basically everybody besides their best player. The big guy wasn't doing a lot up front. The fast guy had bad ball control. The big defender at the back committed too easily and the goalie had absolutely no fucking idea whatsoever. In fact, their main player had to do most of their work and following instructions to just stick and don't commit on him, he tired quickly, all aided by Quoc and Simon's numerous hacks on his shins.
When he lay on the ground after a painful chop by Simon, it was the signal for the mass attack in the final minutes, as Quoc held the ball on the goal arc, feinting to shoot a few times and cheekily tapping the ball past the keeper for a classy goal. Henry carefully lined up an inch perfect free kick into the top left hand corner that bamboozled their already very confused goalie. By the time Sanji capped off a blanket job on their strikers with a thunderbolt from 15m out, we were running riot with some memorable goals and finally, some killer instinct and spirit back. And the smiles at the end of the game typified what was a classy all round, clinical performance.
But let's not get carried away with that win. We've had that scoreline against this team for the 2nd time. And if we're serious about getting into division 1, we need to punish teams like that by working on making more space. It was a better performance in this regard, particularly Henry providing an option down the right but there were still times when the player pushing the ball forward had to stop because of no options. But in fairness, it was still a great win, only marred by a a bizarre charity penalty against Derek for holding the ball too long. Much to our disgust and non-surprise really, given we had the dickhead ref for the second consecutive week.
However, the only downside in our control was no-show no. 334 of Heng to soccer. Heng, you bloody wom, fuck you! Even after team management has busted your ass for being a wom and Dave calling you the night before as a reminder, you still don't even call to let us know you're going to the jungle for the day. Fuck you! Disappointing.
Scoreline: 8-3
Goals: Simon 3, Quoc 3, Sanji, Henry
Man of the match: Simon
Villian of the day: Heng
# posted by Chops @ 10:48 pm 
