Match 44 - Defeat

18 mar 2007, a day of try outs for Songbo FC.

Today's opponents are the uncles we played against a mth ago, and we won 2-0 in that match at dunearn field. Today they are asking for another rematch, maybe due to the fact that they cant take it down nicely that they lost to us the other time, hence the rematch!!
Today's stand in capt for the day is robinho, its partly due to the naivety of capt jack sparrow tt he was bluffed into believing trickester robinho that today will be his testimonial match, but it was not!! hence robinho decided to try a new line up to try out ppl in different positions as we had played against the opponents before.

Starting line up are as follows: GK papa soh, LB thief, RB lusty seng, CB fallen comrades and jack sparrow, DMs C cuper and tiger yan, AMC merv-naldo, LM nba star, RM ah-lam,FW robinho.

Today marks the debut of thief after so long as a super sub, it was noted that he cant sleep the night before when he learnt of the news tt he will be making his debut the next day, so he was visibly shaking with excitment before the match.
several players are playing in new position for the first time, notably are the 2 CBs, fallen comrades and jack sparrow. Though lusty seng has been playing at RB for a long time, it is a relatively inexperienced backline, will the defence crumble to the relentless "slow" uncle attacks? we will see abt tt later. c cuper is back to playing midfield after so long as a CB, but its the first time as a DM, it spells the same for merv-naldo who is playing AMC for the first time. Ah lam is playing out of his usual posn as a FW, instead its RM for him. last but not least to top the players playing in a unfamiliar role is robinho playing as FW, who is also the capt for the day, we will see whether he can bring victory back for the songbo fc! on the bench are the normal starting 11 players: looney,zouk chua, ken-ni,AIA agent,toh. TOH???!!! oh yah its marks the return of toh back to the team after a yr long absence, so will his return boost the morale of songbo fc???

Kick off by the uncles, songbo fc lunged into action crying for blood! inspired by king leonadis of 300, every fellow players who watched it are inspired by the spartan spirits! namely fallen comrades wants to change his name to spark-tan! songbo began pressing the uncles with robinho leading the charge from the front. however 5 mins after the match starts, the bombardment from the persian uncle army began terrorising the backline of songbo fc. waves after waves the attack came, notably with no 13 uncle dictating the attack. soon songbo identify him as the main threat and robinho was asked to close him down before no 13 can launch any attack. however no 13 was much too good and experienced to be marked down. The uncles began doing their passing game and rampage our flanks, the inexperience of the backline soon showed and both RM and LM were drafted in to protect the flanks. Both CB were pulled out of posn to cover for the flanks but there wasnt any DM to cover them back, hence there was a noticeable hole in the middle. Gk papa soh was quoted later saying that there were no CBs at all, just 2 LBS and 2 RBS.Once when spark-tan was pulled out to cover lusty seng, his speed was too fast for the uncle and with him winning back the ball, he tried to launch an attack, but uncle on seeing that he cant get the ball, went in studs in at his ankle. This infuriated the song bo fc!! referee only gave a yellow card! it shd have been a red! luckily spark-tan was able to stand up and continue, the indomitable fighting spirit of his led him to continue the game further.

Besides that, papa soh was doing a great job of keeping the songbo fc in the game by making saves after saves, but he almost blunder once when he did a "jose reina". A uncle was closing him down when a ball was passed back to him, he tried to clear but the ball came off the uncle, with danger looming towards the goal, everyone was holding their breath. Luckily for songbo fc, the uncle took several touches before he can control the ball to shoot, and by then papa soh has already run back to do a last min saving tackle, and its a corner~

Whenever songbo can launch an attack, it will break down after few touches, noticibly was the emptiness of the centre mids, headers were all win by the opponents. capt robinho could do nothing more than run arnd like a headless chicken by trying to win the ball back for the team. Tiger yan joined in the attack and once almost break the goal. He lured 2 defenders and gk to one side and with the goal mouth open, he unselfishly square it back for robinho when he can score for himself, but b4 the ball managed to reach robinho, it was cleared! kudos to tiger for unselfishly create the chance. songbo fc won a few corners too, and it shows tt the opponent keeper was not comfortable with crosses, tiger yan threatened to score again with the keeper fumbling, but alas it was not meant to be.songbo fc stands firm to the persian uncles' army attacks, but then the uncles managed to find a small goat path to sneak in a attack from behind to score. Papa soh saved brilliantly from the long shot, but the rebound was put in by a uncle who is bigger size than papa soh~ oh no! 1-0 to the uncles! then the halftime whistle came~

halftime talk: changes were made with tiger yan to be gk, papa soh to partner with robinho. looney out for ah lam, ken-ni for spark-tan,zouk chua for jack sparrow. so now c cuper partner ken-ni as CBs, looney on the right, zouk chua as DM. Its a more familiar backline now. merv-naldo as CM, with robinho playing behind papa soh.

Songbo began the 2nd half playing better, maybe due to the fact that most of the players are now playing in their familiar roles, and with zouk chua playing in his favourite DM role, headers are now won more than in the first half. However, now our LM nba star is visibly shagged and tired. He keep running with the ball to the fence, maybe he was playing SM last night using fence as one of his equipment and hence keep carrying the ball towards it, he might be trying to reminisce last night's lusty encounter~

Papa soh on as FW has 2 clear chances to equalise for the team. Firstly, he was put through on goal by looney's through ball, he took the ball down well on his first touch but his 2nd touch was poor and by the time he got to the ball, the angle was already blocked by the gk and thus he couldnt do much with his shot....damn! The 2nd chance was robinho broke the offside trap and sprang down the right side of the opponents' half, he saw papa soh in the penalty box, and no 13 uncle is blocking his angle to shoot, hence he decided to float the ball to papa soh, papa soh was about to head the ball in towards goal, when.....PREWWWWWW~ the whistle blew! is it an penalty? nooo it was for a offside, it cannot be, 2 defenders were with papa soh, where was the referee looking at? the ref was standing at the centre circle! does he have a hawk's vision to be able to see from so far? fuck off ref!!!

Soon lusty seng signal to the beach for subsituation due to fatigue, today is his do or die match to cement his RB posn, so did he do enough to book his place in the starting 11 in the future? that will be up to capt jack sparrow's decision. On his place is AIA agent, who is bursting with energy,will be playing on the LB while thief moves over to RB. He made a instant impact by linking up well with robinho,playing a 1-2 before he was brought down by uncle RB where he will be through down the flank, its clearly an illegal obstuction but ref didnt blanish any yellow card! c'mon ref wake up pls!! then a change came. nba star is clearly fatigue, it is not sure whether its from his SM activities last night or from the match, his replacement is toh, who marks his return from a year absence.robinho is pulled back to play as LM. Zouk chua is clearly making an impact in the midfield, he is winning headers after headers, it is where the songbo fc is missing the whole morn. but later he was quoted as saying" what lao 30 mins liao, my leg cramping liao, cant run much" so capt jack sparrow has to plan properly how to deploy zouk chua in the future, maybe every 15 mins sub him out for 10 mins then bring him back to the game again, so tt he can substain for the whole match? haha~

soon the killer goal came~ songbo was under counter attack, the attack from our right flank,where the uncle suddenly swing one ball to our left flank, who pass it back to the centre and shoots! bottom right corner of tiger yan's goal...oh no~ songbo down 2-0. tiger yan can do nothing about it.can they come back after this? robinho requested a change with merv-naldo, he partnering zouk chua in the middle while merv-naldo goes to the LM.
but songbo never give up and continue to conduct attacks of their own, the persian uncle army was visibly tired and slower and the young spartan songbo fc was still visibly full of energy. then the break through came. looney got the ball on the right flank, robinho was running in front of him, he releases him who took just one touch and release to toh. Toh do his usual stepovers, switch the ball from his right foot to his left and shoots, uncle CB do just enough to deflect his shoot and its a corner from their right. robinho went over to place the ball for lonney to take, looney whispered to him "go near post", with tt robinho and toh were standing at the near post. Looney whipped in a near post cross, toh jumped into the air to challenge the gk for it and the ball went in! 2-1, songbo fc is clawing back from the brinks of death! a vital lifeline for them!

Quote from after the match, looney said he was shooting from the corner flag and not crossing, and toh said he didnt touch the ball at all, instead it skins against one of the uncle's head and went in. maybe that uncle is bald on the top of his head, and smooth surface makes the ball easily go into the goal~ haha~ songbo starts to fight for the equaliser and the uncles were clearly on the back foot now. The last shot of the game came from robinho. He took a pass from the centre, feigned past one player and shoots! but alas the shot was well too off from the goal and with tt marks the end of the battle of the titans between spartans songbo fc and persian uncles army. 2-1 the final score~

Though songbo fc lost this game, but by aggregate score we still win 3-2! anyway its a match to let everyone try different roles so as to let everyone know that actually not every role in the team is easy to play in. So everyone now will appreciated what others has been contributing to the team, and i hope that this will strengthen the team further and unite the team. kudos to thief for his never give up attitude to play the whole match for the team, and to toh for willing to try to come back to the soccer scence after his operation, it is noted that a year long absence has resulted in a visible tummy on him. A defeat today we face but victory will come again at our next match!

*No ratings for this match, as its a "testimonial" match. Overall everyone played well and had fun, so we will look foward to the next match then. Huat ah!!!

*report by robinho*

Match 43 - Win

Match 43 Win

Line-up for the match: PapaSoh (GK), Kenny(CB), C-Cup(CB), Hairy(LB), Kelvin(RB), Crampy Chua(DM), Chongster Chen(CM), Looney(LM), Com Tan (RM), Alvin AM), TigerYan (FW).
Lady Luck shining on Songbo fooballers.
Usual lazy Sunday morning! Team morale at songbo camp is relatively high after a 2-0 win against the old uncles during the last match. We could see everyone from songbo fc coming down to the soccer match late. Relax and happy on the last day of chinese new year seems the whole team has a net gained weight of 20 kgs .The Man utd fans were all on a high after a good win over their arch rivals the Kops. Alas dunno why the joy of the win the strength of their team can easily beat the kops by a couple of goals. But eventually man u only won by a single goal in a match the opponent dominated. This only prove on big thing u dun have to play well to win soccer matches just take your chances N most importantly do visit Thailand for some prayers to ensure lady luck would be by your side. If pools were taken over by Taskin a couple of years back no doubt they would be the top soccer team in Europe. But too bad their chance are gone they would always be pretenders for the coming years.
As usual the Bukit Batok guys are the earliest followed by the Jurong kids and as usual the CCK kids. The Sunday morning traffic in that area must be damn heavy to justify the fact that they r always the latest. As the Jurong n BB kids are all dress up for the big thing they realize something was amiss. A team which used to have 6-7 balls for training are left with only ONE N ONLY ball. The worse thing is apparently the latest ball was a proud sponsor of hairy shipping. This only shows one thing if hairy is not around the guys would be without any balls. Its rumoured that second hand soccer ball fetch a high price in the market. Watch out for your ball next time hairy.
During the usual warm up session this old man from NTU walked towards the opponent and we fear for the worst. Seem like we have to play the game at the ruby field. Morale was going down visibly. The old man walk toward us and told us the field was booked at 930 hence it seems like we have to play it at the ruby field. But as fighters of songbo fc we decided to continue our warm-up routine and play a waiting game. At the middle of warming up papa- soh made a hopeful yet ambitious statement. The game would be postpone n we would get our match on the pitch. True enough the match was cancelled and we know that it would be our day. More ever the opponent lost to us recently hence it would be an easy match. During the warm-up caption Chongster had a bit of problem his first choice fullbacks were not playing the game. He was sitting quietly at the bench trying to tinkle around with the formation. But end day only god know what’s the problem with him. With just limited options his line-up was pretty obvious. Apparently his mind the night before the game was on which ger to hook up instead of the team line-up.
1st half
As soon as the referee whistle gets under way songbo tactics was clear attack down the right flank where “Arron Kwok” is defending. He is the obvious link to attack as apparently arron is more suited for singing and dancing much more then soccer. Com tan had a real good fill on the right side of the pitch as all the balls are just pump and pass to him.But to the disappointment to the team the most he could get out of the so called “comparative advantage” was just a couple of corners. In the fifteen mins Alvin was off the pitch in complain of a blisters. As the game progresses the songbo team was confused and disturbed by the mono tone defender no 8. That fellow shouted commands around the pitch. Even before a goal kick or throw in is taken he would be shouting white ball. Only god know what ups in his head other den that 2 words as the 2 words ‘white ball’ at least occur 50 times in the 1st half. Maybe that is the tactics to distract opponents as it worked well with Kelvin as he miskicked the ball at least 2 times which allows the opponent thru. But with a strong backline of Kenny and C-cup every mistakes make seems not as serious. Maybe the sales targets of AIA is making Kelvin distracted from the match or could be the power of love ***** that make him lose concentration.
But soon songbo ran out of ideas how to attack the opponent as star singer Arron Kowk was taken off for a malay player. But as the saying goes looks may be deceiving. Who says that Malays would be better footballer than the Chinese. No doubt they spend maybe 60-80% of their time on football and guitar they might not be as gifted as some Chinese are. But songbo is lucky the malay fellow seems like spending more time on his guitar than football hence they are still in a fight. But the loss of arron was really too hard a blow for songbo as they cannot find much loopholes in the opponent. As the clock tickle downs the ball just had its difficulty getting near to each other goal. Both defense hold up well as the midfielders neutralize each other. The respective attacks would relatively toothless as the striker just run around like a headless tiger. Virtually everyone around the pitch was just waiting for the whistle to be blown.
During the halftime teamtalk, captain chongster switch on his pre recorded tape which was played over and over again. “Our team can win this game as long as we keep our shape and stay compact. I wanted the wingers to move in to help out the central defence.” But this time round certain names were mentioned Kelvin was asked to get more focus on the match instead of how much he need to sell. The usual mistake of trying to go for 50-50% is totally uncalled for as any potential miss would lead to an opening for the opponents. Tiger yan was asked to put his head on and try to provide some good running instead of wasting all energy. He was also task to mark the keeper during goal kick such that short pass would be make possible. “striker makes up for the 1st line of defense for any team”

2nd half
Songbo warriors move out to the field with the same lineup with thief and merv on the bench. As usual the gather and shouted the huat thing. But this time round something is different thief was not in the rally he went back to his bag to get his “gudu” he got from Thailand to give the luck the team was shouting for. As the match got underway both teams try to stamp their authority in midfield area which was too cramped for football. The fight for headers and the tackles got stronger than ever. Both defenses stand as firm as the 1st half while papa soh was just continuing his pop corns left over from the second half. But as the match moves on the fitness difference of both teams became telling as the white got more possession of the ball while songbo could only try to catch them on the break. In the sixty min the white makes a poor clearance to the middle of the park. With no one near him crampy chua powered in an header down the right flank which com tan broke thru. But com lose out a yard or two over the past 2 yrs. In the past he would definitely be clear thru on goal but this time round the defender managed to pip him to the ball before a good cross could be send in. that was a wake up call for the team as its shows that the game is there for them to take. The next header crampy chua has to make raise everyone eye brown as the previous header won give the team a good chance for a counter attack. But to every teammates except his own expectations he was down with cramps once and again. And it is rumoured that it’s a punters day as the bookies offered good odds for him not to last the whole match. The overwhelming bets left the bookies with a hold on their pockets as crampy chua lives out to his name. it was the 3rd straight match he could no finish.
On came thief for crampy as the whole team has to reshuffle. Suddenly the match took a turn. Within mins of coming on as a sub songbo took the lead. The Gudu thing work all thanks to the hardwork of thief.the goal was good work by tiger yan. Soon songbo was two nil up. Jacky score with a long shot after a lousy kick by the keeper. The opponent start pressuring the songbo defence. But good work from Kenny n chaos kept them away. Songbo eventually scored a third from tiger yan after soon hard chasing.
(sorry for the late report really busy nowadays n forgotten a lot about report)