Friday night is often one of the nights when we will have our soccer training, however, without our star defender, alfred though.
Initially it was just like any other nights where we will just assemble at the court together and play with the teams there with the "winner in, loser out" 7-aside format. Just before everyone of us was there, there was this chinese team which we never played before. When all of us were there, we took the initiative and ask to challenge them with "3 goals winner in, loser out(first team to score 3 goals wins). " They agreed and we got started.
Chinese team as usual, are often very hardworking and chase for every ball. We were often under pressure whenever we were in possession. It took us quite some time before we finally broke the deadlock when adib's low cross into the penalty area was deflected into the goal by their defender. Afterwhich, it became easy for us as their morale starts to drop and their weary legs pushed them to their limit. We pushed them further with Wilfred and Darren's commanding presence in the defence, the energetic support from our flanks, Joel and Joseph repectively, the well-build and yet pacy centre midfield Adib and excellent positioning and finishing lone striker, Zi Xian and last but least the good handling and readiness of the game by benedict as our goalkeeper. Soon their defence was spread open at the right flank with joel combining with adib and scrambled the ball into goal. The final goal came just a few mins later with zi xian capping his first goal for us, finally.
The next team we faced is a malay team. They are fast but were outwitted with the superb combination of adib and zi xian to finish them off, 2 goals came quickly and next malay team played us. With the superb defense of wilfred and darren, no goals were conceded and once again, the forwards of joel, adib, joseph and zi xian combined well to score. When confidence running at an all time high, Darren came forward and knock in a perfect diagonal pass from zi xian into the far corner for the winning goal. After that we faced the previous malay team we played in the second game.
This time round, they knew our tactics well and gave us a hard time. Our morale suddenly reached a very low point as we can't string most of our passes together. Passes were intercepted and defence were under lots of pressure. Our tired legs added up to our problems as concentration starts to fall. We were dealt a serious blow when they went a goal up after a series of passes at our left flank and delivered a cross to the far post for an easy tap in. Thats the first goal we conceded. We couldn't find our momentum and misses in front of goal were pulling us down. Then the time came when the always-inspiring darren brought the ball to the right flank and fire a shot towards goal from far for the equaliser. It's just magical and the team soon went a gear up and push for the winning goal. The winning goal came very soon when darren lay the ball to adib at the right flank, adib brought joel through down the right flank, with darren calling for the ball in the middle, joel squares it, and up came Wilfred with a blast into the far corner.
A very emotional celebration came soon after that with the whole team celebrating together. Wilfred finally broke his goal-less curse and scored the winning goal. Soon our next few games become easy with Zi xian scoring freely and become our team's top scorer, adib with the team's top assist. Wilfred solid performance at the back was further improved with well-delivered long balls to the forwards. Darren ventured forward and scored a sensational individual goal from far again which hit the goal pole and went in. Adib closed his goal scoring account after meeting a cross from right flank and nod it into goal through the legs of the goalie. Joseph made the night with a few brilliant telling runs down the left flank and benedict who take over joel at right flank nearly opened his scoring account. Our last game and goal came when a long ball from joel was brilliantly controlled by zi xian and volleyed into the back of the net.
It was a night where we won the respect of our opponents and lots of praises from them because of our teamwork. However, just a reminder for all of us not to be complacent and still play hard, respect our opponents.
Ps: Watch World Cup Finals together? Please leave comments. Good Night.
