Match 38 - Win

Starting Line up: Junbin, Chao, Kenny, Sabian, Kelvin, Jackie, Mervin, Weijie, Rujia, Alvin, Yanshou


Knowing our match 38 on 5 Nov 2006 was the last match of the season, everbody was in high morale and slept well the night before except 2. One was the ever reliable Chaos, he appear in NTU looking like just sleep for 2 hrs though he affirm to us that he slept after he got home after watching soccer at RJ hse. The other was Quan, the high profile stunner lately. From Murtabak power to zouk chua to Attend "C" 5 hrs before the match, now he is in trouble wif love life lately.

From reliable sources, though Zouk Chua claims to watch the Newcastle match until 3am, but he slept at ard 5 plus. So.... wat was he doing from 3-5am? Nobody knows but our paparazzi knows. He was rumoured to be toking to Cai Lee ard that time. While he is happily in love, he seems to forget the time and that explains the "Steam Steam" look he has at NTU. Juggling with exams, girls and soccer is really a chore for him, and to add worse to that, he become suspicious of his team mate, Tiger Yan. It all started when Quan accuse Tiger of having a past wif Cai Lee, which he strongly denied and our sources has confirmed that. Quan has no grounds to be suspicous and we guess it must be due to the lately stress and commitment he is undergoing.

Back to the match, Songbo FC arrived at NTU on time, but they were not the first. Another team of Vietnamese and his opponents were at the stadium waiting for the match. We sent our diplomat , PapaSoh, to smoke them of moving to the field below. But instead, they smoke us back saying they booked the field too, diplomacy failed! It was close to 9am but though we had full attendance, our opponents were late and we had no choice but to move to the field below.

When its about time for kickoff, our Captain Sparrow named his squad. OH SHIT! He left out Zouk Chua to the dismay of everyone. The only noticeable change in the line up was Tiger Yan assuming the role of striker. The pitch was relatively shorter and smaller, Songbo FC knew they were in for a tough time.
Kick off, the opponents started furiously with hard tackles and speedly one-two pass. Songbo was certainly struggling to find their rhytmn of the game back. Though we gave them a few scares in the early part of the game, it was the opponents that gain the upper hand. With our ever reliable Chao missing clearances, pressure was mounting on Songbo. A wake up call was given to them with 'Juventus' running down the left flank against Sabian, but that NBA star upon seeing PapaSoh moving forward, he iterally stop running and 'Juventus' simply wack the ball into the top corner of the goal. 0 - 1, Songbo was down a goal.

This goal certainly woke Songbo up. They began to spread out their flanks and deliever long balls forward to Tiger Yan. Tiger Yan had a great through on goal minutes after but was off balanced by the opponents and the ball flew over the bar. They continue keeping the attack flowing and the effort paid off when Sabian's looping pass travelled into the top right corner. GOAL!!!!!! 1-1 , Songbo was full of confidence. Soon after that, Looney intercept a pass and dribble into the centre. Just when everybody tot he was going to do monkey tricks and hold on to the ball for strikers to shave their moustaches, he release a chip over the last man for Tiger Yan to chase. Tiger Yan races clear with the last man smelling his smoke, the GK ran forward trying to cover his angle but he hit the ball pass him and POOOM! The GK knocked onto Tiger Yan and the referee gave a penalty straight. The opponents had no complaints.

We were looking around who had not scored a goal before, but Robinho and LustySeng were both on the bench. What a waste! No choice, Captain Sparrow call on PapaSoh. PapaSoh was calm with the ball and kick the ball to the left and scores beautifully. The keeper was quite close to saving it. 2-1
2-1 up but Songbo was still hungry especially Tiger Yan. His wait finally paid off when Ah Lam release a short pass to him from the left flank, and with his back facing the goal, he turn and shoot..... 3-1! The ball flew blast into the top right corner. Tiger Yan finally got the chance to celebrate his 'Cisse Style' and shrug off the rumours and gossips surrounding him due to Zouk Chua.

During the break, everyone was high in morale and captain did not point out much mistakes to his team. Everyone was laughing and pretty relaxed, a rare sight in Songbo dressing room. Zouk Chua came on for the missy Chaos.
After the break, the opponents seems to have made significant tactical changes and approaches to the game. Songbo had a hard time again, they were facing possesion problems in the centre mid and flanks kept penetrating. Capt sparrow and commando tan was struggling to deal with the extra person they deploy in their mid, at the flanks the wingers were abit fast for Looney and Sabian. Songbo does not have much chances to carry out their passing game and long balls cant fly pass their last man. Looney was clearly showing signs of lapse of concentration due to overnight foreplay with his girlfriends.
A cross field pass from the left flank flew past Zouk Chua and accurately to their 'botak' player and all he need is 2 touch to send the ball past PapaSoh. The angle was very tight and PapaSoh cant do anything. 3-2

Captain sparrow decided to change Kelvin for Robinho to settle the defence. But it was disaster after that. Not long later, the opponent deliver a same cross field pass. Our Robinho was watching the ball as if he was looking at Fiona Xie breasts. When the ball flew past him, then he realised that was a soccer ball and not a breast. But it was too late and by that time, the same 'botak' player received the ball and from the same angle, he shot past PapaSoh again. 3-3
Papasoh was extremely furious with the equaliser, he slammed the ground and reprimand Robinho. It was a clear mistake from him.

Morale was low and football was hard to play especially with the opponents keep reminding the referee how many fouls we had committed against them. Sabian was awarded a yellow card due to multiple fouls and of course some nagging from the opponents. Weather was hot and Tiger Yan had some talk with Mervin to vent his frustrations while Commando Tan was groining in pain on the ground. Tiger always tok in a rude manner but Mervin was clever not to bother with him and get back to the game.

The game was ending soon, but no one was giving up. Songbo was fighting to the max. A confusion in the centre mid saw Tiger Yan stealing the ball away(with a bit of handball) and dribble straight to the keeper. He muscles past the last man and upon seeing the keeper charging forward, he clip the ball above him and scores. GOOOAL! 4-3
Tiger Yan was mad with joy, Songbo spirit were lifted up. Opponents were devasted and they had lost their momentum. Songbo capitalised on their low morale and forced them to make mistakes again. A poor clearance from the opponent delivered to Captain sparrow near the penalty area and he had ample time to aim and blast a long shot to the bottom left corner. GOOOAAL! 5-3

Captain Sparrow had the chance to celebrate his 'Tim Cahill' style again. Seconds after the goal, the referee blew for final time. YEAH! Songbo FC extend their wining streak to 5 matches making it a record and a 7 unbeaten run. They were close to drawing again.
Its a pity LustySeng cant be used in the game, from reliable sources Captain Sparrow was too shag and confused to sub Lusty into the game. It marks a great moment for our season break. We shall now keep our fitness in shape to prepare for the start of our season.


Morale of the story: Dun ever be complacent, and dun mess up a soccer ball for Fiona's Breast.

Songbo Diving Expedition

Warriors of the Songbo FC,

Due to popular demand, I'm organising a Diving course for all of you. Because of the monsoon season, Tioman and Rendang is undivable. Phuket will be too expensive, certainly more then $800.

I would suggest we dive in local water. Our southern islands provide some good diving sites. (Heard people say, i never dive there before)

The cost of the basic dive course will be $280nett. (Include equipment)

Please sign up under 'comment'.

Manager's Championship Table

Alright the moment that some of you have been waiting for. After a blistering 9 weeks of Fantasy Soccer dogfights, it's time to see who's been leading the table for the Manager's Championship Table. After intense tabulation of scores, the results, sorted in descending order, are as below:

Mervin	91
Hweequan	88
Seng	79
Tan Weijie	72
Alvin	69
Raymond	67
HuangWeijie	62
Junbing	59
Yanshou	59
Rujia	58
Suichao	49
Kenny	48
Kelvin	19

The points are awarded as such: 13 points for 1st place, 12 points for 2nd and as follows. 2 players having the same points for the week gets same points (if 1st spot is a draw, 3rd place gets 11 points while the 2 1st gets 13 points). Kelvin has such a low total because he started 4 weeks late. More updates and tidbits from Yahoo! Fantasy Soccer to come...

Match 37 - Win (By Captain Sparrow)

Hmm.. I realised that writing of match report is not as easy as it is made out to be. Kudos to Mervin for making the great efforts to have contributed constructively to most match reports thus far. Papasoh too for his sole ontribution. And Tiger who is always trying so hard to either motivate his teammates or point out their strengths and weaknesses. Well done bros, thanks for keeping the team together!

Match report – Match 37: (Lineup: Junbing, Sybian, Binghong, Kenny, Sweechao, Weijie, Jackie, Yanshou, Rujia, Alvin, Kelvin)

Thanks to our efficient PR manager, Kelvin, we managed to have a match against his so-called ‘ba-ka’ navy friends. From the physique and warm-up of the opponents, it was evident that match 37 would be quite an even and tough match. Most of the players have bigger build and they even have 2 Indians! Tough match ahead..Another point to note was that the referee for this match is not ‘Collina’ but a Chinese Mr Tay who was strongly recommended by Tiger.

The match started cautiously for both sides. The early stages of the game was played in the middle of the park. Soon, Songbo began to stamp their authority on the game and dominated the possession. A good move down the right involving Robin Ho and Fletchee saw Alam putting the ball just wide after connecting with the cross. Looney and Fletchee also tried swinging crosses into the penalty area but to no avail. On another occasion, Kelvin played a poor pass across the goal to Titant after clean through on goal. Once again, Songbo could not turn their domination into convertion in the early stages of the game. And they did not apply much pressure on the keeper who appeared to be the weakest link in their defence. Crosses were going astray and play was broken down in the opponents penalty area.

Frustrations set in and shouts and criticisms can be heard from within the Songbo camp. As the game wore on, the Navy guys began to come back into the game and created a few chances of their own. From a corner and a resulting poor clearance from Sparrow, one of the Indians tried a speculative shot on goal and the usually-reliable Papasoh let a bouble tricked him and the ball trickled into the goal. 0-1.

The rest of the half saw the game being battled mostly in the middle of the park and the lack of any clear chances for both sides. Sparrow was praying for the half-time whistle to arrive sooner so that Songbo can reorganize and he can give the team a good dressing-down for the lack of support and encouragement for one another.

The referee blew for half-time and Sparrow asked for more support within the ranks and the players to enjoy their soccer. We should not surrender our 3 game winning so meekly to an evenly matched opponent.

The team trooped out for the 2^nd half, hoping to gain an early equalizer back first. The team was playing better but there was still not much headway made into the opponents goal. A tactical switch was then made. Tiger was to move up to the striking position and Kelvin back to fullback and Robin in a unfamiliar defensive midfield role. The switch started to pay dividends when the physically stronger Tiger began to irritate the opponents defence with his robust moves. Looney and Flecthee were also starting to make better runs down the flanks.

In one move from the left, Tiger beat the defender to the ball and laid a perfect pass to Sparrow. With one touch of the ball, he took the ball past the defender and the second touch was placing the ball into the back of the net. Its Tim Cahill’s celebration time! 1-1.

The spirit and morale of the team raised substantially and there was an air of optimism that a winner can be achieved. However, the teams were still evenly-matched and chances were few and far between.

Another switch saw Robin moved to the RM role and Fletchee back as the d-mid. Songbo began to have a more settled feel to their play. A through ball down the right saw Kel sprinting to the byline. With Tiger shouting for the ball verociously, Kel attempted a cross aiming at Tiger. As Ladyluck would have shine on Songbo, the cross turned into a top-corner shot which totally caught the keeper off guard. 2-1.

At this point, Mervin was substituted into the game at the expense of Ah Lam to give him some match time for his efforts for making it to the match after his duty. (This part is inserted by Mervin - "knn rush down to the match not even a mere mention of my name where got such thing one?!")

Songbo has turned the game around and they definitely are more comfortable in guarding a lead then chasing one. 4 wins on the trot!

Well done guys! Although there are still lots of room for improvements, lets just hope we enjoy our game and keep it going! Now for match 38!

Shhh....rumours (By Captain Sparrow)

Before I go into writing this match report 37, let’s indulge in some gossips prior to this match. I shall not specifically mention names due to sensitivity of issues. Firstly, Match 37 saw the eleventh-hour pullout of a player from the traveling squad due to ‘exam reasons’ he cited. To be exact, the Captain received notification of his pullout 3am on the night before the match which was around 5 hrs before the match kicked off. Most of us are students or at least before so I can perfectly understand and accept the reason of exams for not being available. However, there were too much coincidences in this case which made it very fishy. There are 2 school of thoughts or possible rumours regarding this. Firstly, there were talks that the player was not able to face his teammates after the team he supported managed only a goalless draw with a bottom-placed team (which coincidentally is a team another teammate supports) at home in the EPL. He was said to be so affected by the result of the match that he was not able to concentrate fully on revising and thus pulling out at the last minute.

The second explanation seems to be more likely. His disappearance from the team bus coincided with the fact that on the previous Friday, he just brought out Miss Credit Card-Swiper to meet the gang for a session of kopi. The funny thing was, the player was still very enthusiastic about playing the game on Sunday through the tone of his SMS he sent to his captain during the week. He also seemed to be able to make it for the game from his body language during the kopi session. Thus, there were rumours that he slipped out of his home on Saturday night either for a quickie or wat with Miss Credit Card-Swiper and as a result being not able to make it for the team.

Which explanation do you guys go for? Something to ponder over the weekend…

Another issue was the MSN nick of a player, Mr Politically-correct, after he couldn’t make it for the same match on Sunday. His nick was relating to a comment that how the world is strange. When quizzed by Mr Tiger and Mr Sparrow online, it seems that Mr Politically-correct has got some probs of his sex life with his relatively new gf. However, he refused to divulge further after being probed by the 2. As the Captain of the team, I just wish that every player has a perfectly healthy sex life, be it firing blanks or live firing. But I just hope that the sexual life will not affect a player’s personal life which in turn will adversely affect the performance on field. Therefore, for any players who has problems with their sex life, pls feel free to look for me with ur partners. I believe that, with my knowledge and experience, I will be able to provide valuable advice and ensure good performance both on and off the field.

Disclaimer: The issues discussed above are by no means representative of the stand taken by the team. It purely reflects the in-depth thinking and concern of the writer with regards to the team. Any character who bears resemblance to anyone is plain coincidental.

Match 36 - Win (By Captain Sparrow)

Hi all,
Captain Sparrow here. I have to admit that I was in Z*uk while Tiger was watching Man U lose to Copenhagen. Sorry abt tat! The match report for match 36 is long overdue.

Match report – Match 36 : (Lineup: Yanshou, Kelvin, Kaiseng, Kenny, Hweequan, Weijie, Rujia, Alvin, Jackie, Mervin, Junbing)

This was the 2.5 times that we were playing against my Indon frens team. The 1^st 1.5 times had ended in statlemate between us. Thus, the outcome of this match was to be eagerly anticipated. Prior to the start of the match, intelligence reported that the Indon team that appeared at NTU was only close to 50%. Several of their key players did not appear on the team sheet. The instructions for the match was easy: Play simple, keep the ball on the ground and convert our chances.

The match started on a positive note for our team. The guys were confident after back-to-back wins and seem to be enjoying the game in the early stages. The team dominated the game but could not turn the possession into goals. Frustration starts to set in and it was not helped by some calamity goalkeeping from Tiger who almost let in a simple goal from a high bounce.

Captain Sparrow was trying hard to motivate the team and prevent complacency from setting in but he was not able to settle into the game himself. However, the break through came after a fine move down the right. The cross came in and upon hearing a shout from behind, Mervin made a brilliant dummy. Sparrow got the ball under control with one touch and put the ball into the net with the next. 1-0.

The rest of the 1^st half saw Songbo having a couple of decent chances but was unable to put it away. Simple square passess were missing and instead, cross-field passess were attempted on a frequent basis.

Soon, ‘Collina’ blew for the break. During the half-time team talk, Sparrow gave the team a good dressing-down for being complacent and not taking their chances well. The target was simple, anything less than a 3-4 goal win will be deemed as a failure.

The team came out of the break, with renewed enthusiasm and purpose. The defence was more compact and Tiger was showing much more assurances. The midfield was trying to open up the opponents’ defence and helping the strikeforce create chances. Songbo doubled its lead within a short time.

Papasoh, deciding that a simple shot on target will be able to beat the inexperienced keeper, converted a shot after good work from the attacking midfielders. 2-0

Soon, Jackie got into the act. He placed a good shot just above the keep from a free kick. That goal brought him to the top of Songbo’s goalscoring charts, overtaking the injured Alvin Toh.

The major talking point of the match came right after that. Sparrow, usually composed and clear headed, conceaded a silly penalty. He was tracking back at the same opponent who clipped his ankles just minutes earlier and used his hands to shove him when he was in the penalty area. Altho the opponent did not fall to the ground, ref felt that it was clear enough to give a penalty. It was harsh but that serves as no excuse for the stupidity and rashness shown by the captain. In short, it was simply uncalled for, with the team in such commanding position.

The taker placed the ball to Tiger’s right, who was unlucky not to have saved the kick after getting the direction right. 3-1.

Thereafter, Songbo was subjected to more pressure and it seemed that the opponents would be able to get back into the game after the silly mistake by Sparrow. However, determined defending and assured goalkeeping ensure Songbo’s lead was not cut further.

A solo effort by Jackie on the left followed by a shot to the keeper’s near post which he should have parried restored Songbo’s 3 goal lead.

Papasoh got his second for the day by planting a firm header into the goal. 5-1. Game, set, match.

The match was one sided but Songbo laboured harder than they should. This was certainly not helped by the reckless behaviour of Captain Sparrow. I would like to use this opportunity to apologise to the team for the moment of madness. As I said, if it was any other player who had committed the mistake, he would have gotten a real thrashing from me. It would have been a clean sheet if not for me. Let’s hope everyone learns from this and not repeat the mistake.

A 3^rd win on the trot. Songbo is well into the end of season flourish.

Players' Report for match 37

In case you all are mistaken, this is a report on the players performances and not match report. The one is should be doing (not Mervin) is no where to be seen, maybe we can find him somewhere in Zo*k, M*S, or St James Power Shit. Since he is not free, i shall post something in the middle of watching Man U vs Copen to ou brothers.

Junbin - GK skills is always there, now left forward role to work on. Generally, he lack abit of fitness to really sprint for the ball. Finishing is not a prob to him, provided he has fitness left at that time. Captain shld design his role on the field if he is playing alongside wif ah lam. If captain din do that, fuck him pls.

Chao - Strong in clearing balls and know where to position himself well. Is not afraid to close in on opponents to fight for the ball. Heading is okay but can be better if he pull his head backwards and thrust it forward when heading the ball, the ball will bounce off faster. Has a big body, shld try to use it more to shield away opponents or disbalance them. Cant really stretch his legs vertically up to clear balls like wat kenny does, it helps alot for awkward situations.

Kenny - Do what u are doing right now. You are on the right track. Maybe can try giving the ball a planned direction everytime u clear. Try to dribble the ball upwards if u have the space.

Hong - I say a few here. the rest leave it to captain to zua. Shld try to learn how to whip stationary ball higher, i dun mean freekicks that type. Tackles try to be precise to avoid unnecessary fouls. Train ur vision, cos u cant seem to know where ur mates are when u get the ball.

Tan - same prob as hong, need to train how to wack balls higher. Solve the problem of mis kicking the ball using ur left leg. Short passes and vision is there.

Jackie - Did a great job in holding the ball, so that forwards and midfielders can chit chat and shave their moustaches. Has very poor vision, dunno where their team mates are, cos eyes is always on the ball. Has good ball skills but shld put them to good use. Shld prove urself u are still improving and not one that has reached his end.

Thats all folks, cos its time to sleep now.