Match 132 - Lost

Songbo FC 0:1 Opponents


Date: 21st Mar 2010
Venue: Hua Yi Sec Sch
Jersey: Red

Starting Line-Up
Junbing(GK), H.Weijie(LB), Kenny(CB), Swee Chao(CB), Kaiseng(RB), Jacky(LM), Hweequan(DM), Sybian(CM), Rujia(AM), Mervin(RM), Jeremy(ST)

Subtitutes:
Alvin Toh, Jiaxiang


Scores:
HT: 0-0
FT: 0-1

Summary
Bullocks

Another weekend, another match, another interesting story to tell.

This week, we welcome back zouk chua, who mysteriously applied for mc in the last match. Though he is making more runs and showing signs of ‘improved’ fitness on the field recently, it doesn’t justify the fact that the team isn’t playing well with him around. On the other hand, our alam shah (giggs-to-be), who has been missing a lot of matches recently (101 reasons), has been displaying better performance. Of course, one can argue that the quality of the opponent should be taken into consideration. But at the end of the day, it’s the results that count.

Our opponent is an all malay team we have yet to play before. Using on one of his standard team talk template, Capt Sparrow, reminds the rest of the team what kind of attacking strategy we should used, against such an opponent.

“Long ball! Long ball! That’s their weakness. Their center defense is BAO JIAK!”

Saying that, he exclaimed that he had a good long early rest the night before and his own performance today should be much better than the previous match. Good Rest = Good Performance? Capt. Sparrow will be putting this theory to the test today. Another ‘scientist’ that intends to test out his own theoryy today is our Mr. Lusty Seng, aka Cyclops. His outstanding performance in the previous matches is largely due to the black glasses that he wore. One wonders why he only brings it out to wear now, even though he has already been wearing the same pair of glasses for his ICT.

The theory he want to test today is, “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken”.

Thinking that his recently good run of form is due to that pair of glasses but rather his own talent, he decided not to keep it at home. Being the winner of last year’s Best Excuse Award. I must his excuse for not bringing the glasses further justify why he won that award hands down. (Out of the 5 excuses being nominated, 5 of them belong to him).

So with 2 scientists carrying out their own test today, let’s find out what the result will be…

The first few minutes at the start of the match are usually the time used to check out how good your opponents are. With both sides playing carefully, not giving away much of the ball. After understanding what strategy each team is employing, the attacks starts to roll in around 10+mins into the game. A fluent passing game by the opponent managed to create a few good scoring chances. However, the telepathic understand of the defense team enable most, if not all, of the attacks looks easy to cancel out. Compared to the other opponents that we have faced previously, this is definitely one of the teams that match or worse still, falls below our standard. Sensing that the threat from this team isn’t going to be high, confidence started to build up for Songbo. Countless long ball are being directed towards the opponent’s center defense, but time and time again, their ‘Bao Jiak’ duo manages to clear the ball with little difficulty. Bad start for an experiment?

Though the defense is doing well, it is quite clear that Cyclops is missing his glasses. Long balls are misjudged. Tackles are made with 50% of them winning only, compared to around 80% with glasses. All is not lost as Cyclops isn’t performing as worse as we thought he will be. Thus, one doesn’t have to wait until the end of the match to determine whether his experiment is a failure or not. Failure it is, but it isn’t as bad as it is expected to be. Cyclops will need his glasses !!!

Another point to note from this game is that we are being assigned the same referee for 3 consecutive matches. Benefit of doubt can be given to the referee if he officiate it badly in the first game. But if one handles all 3 games badly, it can only mean one thing. Where does he get his license from? Furthermore, if one wears glasses to the match, why take it off during the match? The only reason that I can think of it is if he is wearing sunglasses, but in this case, he is definitely not wearing one!

With this, the first half ended without nothing much to comment about.

The team talk for the 2^nd half doesn’t deviate much from the first.

“Long Ball !! BAO JIAK !!”

One must have the thought that the opponent has been hearing what we are saying during team talk. Reason being that instead of them, who is afraid of long balls, we are the ones that conceded a goal from a long shot with just a few minutes into the 2^nd half. 1-0.

With a goal down, Songbo stepped up their attacking threats. If they are 10 long balls made in the first half, then there must be like 20+ long balls made in the 2^nd. Regardless of the number of long balls we make, the same result surfaced. Their supposedly “Bao Jiak” defense are able to deal cleanly with long balls being pumped in. Surprisingly, the good attacking chances that we’ve created are all from short passes and a bit of individual brilliance. If not for the poor poor finishing, we could have turn the game from a 0-1 defeat to a 4-1 win.

So, what are the experimental results from Capt. Sparrow? Though he did make some superb individual moves. His poor finishing in the end overshadowed all the wonderful efforts that he did earlier. It’s like looking at the back of a lady who have superb figure, but after she turn around, you would have hope that she keep walking with her back to you. Thus, the result for Capt. Sparrow’s experiment is..

Good Rest is not equal to Good Performance.

The matched ended in our defeat.. 0-1.

The morale of the story is… “BAO JIAK BECOMES TIO JIAK”. Or in short.. “BJ BECOMES TJ”..