Sunday, July 31, 2005
Match Review 5
Match 5, Winter Season, vs Palm Sugar
With a sense of silent smugness at the beginning of the game, we approached this contest versus the youngsters of Palm Sugar with a certain degree of nonchalance and arrogance. Yeah, sure we should never underestimate an opponent but seeing as this was a rare occurence where we towered over most of our opposition, it was hard to dismiss the fact this should have been an absolute rout.
Bringing this attitude into the game was always bound to blow up in our faces. The start of the game had the ring of a bomb with a countdown timer, slowly warning us of imminent failure if we didn't wisen up quick smart. Although Palm Sugar had absolutely no skill on the ball, smaller frames and lack of team cohesion, we struggled immensely to even worry their keeper. The DBB machine was running at 2% optimum effiency and was looking every bit like the rag tag team with errand passing, poor defence, poor midfield contesting and poor opening up of space. The first few minutes were really an eyesore to watch.
Palm Sugar's poor anticipation and just in general, lack of offensive and defensive awareness had the usual fakes and feigns having little effect whatsoever. It was akin to a chick or a little kid just stand in front of a skilled player that is doing stepovers and not buying any of it. Quoc, picked up on this earliest and eventually, began to just lean in and casually turn away from his opponents with ease. Drawing opponents, and getting past them, he set up numerous chances that Heng and Henry didn't gobble up. In fact, the only eating these two had done was a huge bolus of prematch food which had diverted all the blood from their muscles to their gut. Henry must of had the better prematch nutrition because he was controlling the ball up to goal but didn't have any options to lay off.
Sanji was patrolling defence and repelling Palm Sugar's elder statesmen but with the little offensive firepower they actually had, should have been driving us up more and opening the play. Dave could not find a way past this amateur defence, consistently outpacing them but then losing the ball from bad touch or a lucky slack foot from his marker. Henry and Heng one-two'd on numerous occasions up front, only to let their abdominal bulge get in their way of their kicking.
Quoc kick started the scoreboard with a beautiful turn past his marker and an equally nice finish. His second mirrored the first and finally, it looked like we might be on a role. His placement low to the ground was key to the third and at half time, it was Quoc who was single handedly saving us from total embarassment.
The skill level picked up temporarily after the break, with Quoc adding to his growing tally of goals, and dragging two defenders towards him to open up Heng, who blasted from the right to begin the onslaught. However, the poor alertness cost us a very cheap goal that should've finally woken us up but had the opposite effect. Quoc was the only one to show some spirit and worked for the ball in midfield, getting a scragged ball into his path and volleying past the keeper just on the boundary of the goal arc.
The rot set in after his interchange off the ground, with a rush from one of the little kids' dads. A temporary scare as the scoreboard showed 4 goals credited to Palm Sugar woke up the team, as Heng, Dave and Sanji rallied to put the result beyond doubt. Henry also tried hard to get his name on the scoresheet but was off target all game. With the game sewn up, Derek came on for the final few minutes as Sanji and Dave fed the ball for him to score but he lacked the final touch.
On the whole, the most disappointing performance of the season. For a team that is pushing for division 1, that was a pathetic effort against the worst team of division 2. Teams like that should be disposed of ruthlessly and the fact that we didn't try harder or control the game speaks volumes about tonight's attitude or lack of it. Good teams win. Champion teams have the killer instinct. You know the game time. Don't eat big before the game. Psych up for the game. Listen to some pump up music. Anything to get you giving it your 110% every week. Sure we won today but with the lack of preparedness today, it was always going to be an ugly victory. With the exception of Quoc, piss poor effort guys. We should've annihilated them.
Scoreline: 10-4
Goals: Quoc 6, Heng 2, Dave, Sanji
Man of the match: Quoc
Worst acting award: Heng
With a sense of silent smugness at the beginning of the game, we approached this contest versus the youngsters of Palm Sugar with a certain degree of nonchalance and arrogance. Yeah, sure we should never underestimate an opponent but seeing as this was a rare occurence where we towered over most of our opposition, it was hard to dismiss the fact this should have been an absolute rout.
Bringing this attitude into the game was always bound to blow up in our faces. The start of the game had the ring of a bomb with a countdown timer, slowly warning us of imminent failure if we didn't wisen up quick smart. Although Palm Sugar had absolutely no skill on the ball, smaller frames and lack of team cohesion, we struggled immensely to even worry their keeper. The DBB machine was running at 2% optimum effiency and was looking every bit like the rag tag team with errand passing, poor defence, poor midfield contesting and poor opening up of space. The first few minutes were really an eyesore to watch.
Palm Sugar's poor anticipation and just in general, lack of offensive and defensive awareness had the usual fakes and feigns having little effect whatsoever. It was akin to a chick or a little kid just stand in front of a skilled player that is doing stepovers and not buying any of it. Quoc, picked up on this earliest and eventually, began to just lean in and casually turn away from his opponents with ease. Drawing opponents, and getting past them, he set up numerous chances that Heng and Henry didn't gobble up. In fact, the only eating these two had done was a huge bolus of prematch food which had diverted all the blood from their muscles to their gut. Henry must of had the better prematch nutrition because he was controlling the ball up to goal but didn't have any options to lay off.
Sanji was patrolling defence and repelling Palm Sugar's elder statesmen but with the little offensive firepower they actually had, should have been driving us up more and opening the play. Dave could not find a way past this amateur defence, consistently outpacing them but then losing the ball from bad touch or a lucky slack foot from his marker. Henry and Heng one-two'd on numerous occasions up front, only to let their abdominal bulge get in their way of their kicking.
Quoc kick started the scoreboard with a beautiful turn past his marker and an equally nice finish. His second mirrored the first and finally, it looked like we might be on a role. His placement low to the ground was key to the third and at half time, it was Quoc who was single handedly saving us from total embarassment.
The skill level picked up temporarily after the break, with Quoc adding to his growing tally of goals, and dragging two defenders towards him to open up Heng, who blasted from the right to begin the onslaught. However, the poor alertness cost us a very cheap goal that should've finally woken us up but had the opposite effect. Quoc was the only one to show some spirit and worked for the ball in midfield, getting a scragged ball into his path and volleying past the keeper just on the boundary of the goal arc.
The rot set in after his interchange off the ground, with a rush from one of the little kids' dads. A temporary scare as the scoreboard showed 4 goals credited to Palm Sugar woke up the team, as Heng, Dave and Sanji rallied to put the result beyond doubt. Henry also tried hard to get his name on the scoresheet but was off target all game. With the game sewn up, Derek came on for the final few minutes as Sanji and Dave fed the ball for him to score but he lacked the final touch.
On the whole, the most disappointing performance of the season. For a team that is pushing for division 1, that was a pathetic effort against the worst team of division 2. Teams like that should be disposed of ruthlessly and the fact that we didn't try harder or control the game speaks volumes about tonight's attitude or lack of it. Good teams win. Champion teams have the killer instinct. You know the game time. Don't eat big before the game. Psych up for the game. Listen to some pump up music. Anything to get you giving it your 110% every week. Sure we won today but with the lack of preparedness today, it was always going to be an ugly victory. With the exception of Quoc, piss poor effort guys. We should've annihilated them.
Scoreline: 10-4
Goals: Quoc 6, Heng 2, Dave, Sanji
Man of the match: Quoc
Worst acting award: Heng
# posted by Chops @ 10:52 pm 
