Saturday, August 05, 2006
So...a post on the soccer friendly against ri
I think from a player's pt of view, it's much harder to see who is performing well so i'll just describe the match from my point.
So the day started off with frisbee, which is one of those simple games which is super fun if you really play hard. Even though i threw a lot of throws that went off, i still rofled and blamed my teamates pwn!
Then, ihe test. The day before i actually stayed in the library for around halfhour to study the plate tectonics and i do think i might be able to scrape a pass. Chinese test was gay, halfway we had a fire drill.
Soz. The real excitement started after school. I wanted to eat lunch because i feared i would be out of energy like last training where i felt awful the wholegame, being supertired after making just one run and not being able to focus...I prayed to myself for adrenaline to carry me through.
At 2 we gathered to put the goals in place. I really think the whole soccer team has bonded as a true team, everyone was joking as we carried the goalposts to position. Previously everyone was asking if i was starting and as much as i wanted to say yes, i couldn't. The past training wincoln played in centermid and darryl was pushed to leftback and i didnt want to lie to myself or disappoint the rest if i ddint start.
We saw mr tok coming carrying what would be our jerseys. Everyone was quite excited and eventually i got number 3. Ramesh came and we had our teamtalk, and i was i starting as leftback. Was a confidence booster, and he went through the basics of what we were supposed to do.
bx was keeper
samuel, yaolei central defence
me leftback, fab rightback
wincoln, aran central mid
darryl leftwing, kaiye rightwing
strikers guangyue and gino
on the bench was yujie, xy, mj, gino, iype, zhenghao, tobias
we warmed up and saw the ri team. They weren't as big as fab described ._. , but we heard they had 2 geylang youth players and their nat under 16 defender wasn't playing.
the conditions of the match were...wow. we had a ref and 2 linesman, plenty of waterbottles by the side and quite a decent crowd of spectators. Hon was watching, that we knew and i didn't feel too shaky when they match started.
The firsthalf kicked off and we immediately put pressure on their half. The first time i got into play was a highball and i was going to control it with my feet when it went under instead. Swore in my heart and felt myself cursing, also heard the jeers of the ri spectators but luckily the ball went to samuel.
Wincoln got a decent longrange attempt, thats all i can remember
Second time i got into action, again an identical highball which i repeated the same mistake. But this time the consequences could have been much more disastrous. The ball fell near the penalty area and 2 ri players were going to get it with none of our players near them. I rushed back and knew i wouldn't reach it before the ri players so i instinctively slid and managed to knock the ball just before the ri player reached it. I thought it was going to be a corner but bingxiang managed to get it just before it went out and kept it in possession.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Both sides kept putting pressure on one another, we did better, but their geylang midfielder was causing havoc on the rightflank. We put pressure again, and suddenly this longball was launched to my flank and i was slightly caught out of position. I got back in front of him, waited for him to make his move, saw he hit the ball too far and quickly nipped in to cut it off for a corner.
From then on i did extremely well on the ground but pretty terrible in the air. Kept challenging for highballs without really aiming but the right winger could not get past me once. Everytime he would keep the ball under his control, i would wait for him to make his move, he'd push the ball to the corner which i either cut out or tackled.
So- i was getting quite tired but i still felt i could keep on going. Wincoln was a tremendous help and often dropped out to shield the defence, ramesh's tactics of compacting the midfield allowed us to win the ball plenty of times. We had a few chances that might have resulted in goals if guangyue put more effort into bursting but it was still quite a good firsthalf where we played better.
During halftime we were made to lie down and have our legs raised perpendicularly, probably to let the lactic acid spread or something. Drank lots of water, and then ramesh started the halftime talk. He mentioned guangyue not playing hard enough, aran as well, and took off darryl for zhenghao. Also, he said their goalkeeper wasn't good, and the only player who could make things happen was number 11, the geylang midfielder.
Secondhalf kicked off
I did better, again their rightwinger had no way to get past me. Fab and kaiye linked up well and sent in a lot of crosses which their geylang defender did well to keep out. However, there were plenty of shaky moments for ri, while we remained relatively calm except when the geylang midfielder wrecked the right wing.
Yaolei and Samuel were solid, yao lei rarely missed a header whereas samuel provided great cover and was pretty much unbeatable. I didnt want to run up too much because i knew i was afraid i would tire out and get caught out of position, so i simply tackled and passed.
From freekicks and corners, there were quite a few goalmouth scrambles, according to xy there was an open goal but the ball went through aran's legs. Plenty of halfchances came in for us, whereas RI's only threat came in the form of number 11 who made quite a few mazy runs. One time he got past kaiye, fabian, yaolei but samuel was unbeatable and stopped his run.
Then cramps set in. Wincoln and zheng were the first two victims, wincoln wanted to play on, but 5 minutes later his cramp set in again and he had to be taken off. Gino came in for zheng and iype for wincoln. near the end of the game, samuel was down with cramps but he managed to hold out till the end, and aran was subbed off for mj.
There was quite a chilling incident where this substitute ri striker broke through the defence and attempted a volley which bx managed to parry into the air and collect when it came down. But it was a very late offside which the referee was late to blow for.
And then, the number 11 tried his luck at my flank near the end, he made to cut into the penalty area, i shifted to block, he decided not to cut in and turned outside, i followed, then he pushed the ball in front and i felt him trying to retrieve it by running behind me but i shrugged him off and got to the ball first, pushed it towards the corner for a bit while turning so that i would face the ri goal and hastily cleared it.
In the end, the game settled to a 0-0 and the match had to be settled through penalties. Guangyue, kaiye, zhengao, samuel, gino went to take it.
ri player stepped up and scored. 0-1
some ri students went near the goal and flounced about, trying to interrupt/distract our penaltytakers. it looked bad on them, everyone knew.
samuel stepped up and hit the crossbar. 0-1
ri player stepped up, bx got a hand but he still scored. 0-2
zhenghao stepped up, smashed it towards the right goalpost. 1-2
ri player stepped up and scored. 1-3
Samuel told us to face back and relax. It didnt matter if we won or lost, we played better and that was all that mattered. I didnt see any of the other kicks
Kaiye stepped up. we heard the whistle, we heard the hci cheers. 2-3
ri player stepped up. we heard the whistle, we heard the hci cheers. 2-3
guangyue stepped up. we heard the whistle. we heard the hci cheers. 3-3
ri player stepped up. we heard the whistle. we heard the hci cheers. 3-3
gino stepped up. we heard the whistle. we heard the HCI CHEERS. PAnDEMOnIUM! (my n button is spoilt, the only way i type it is by copying and pasting)4-3
The whole team rushed up to hug gino, followed by the our supporters, councillors, friends. somehow i didnt rush up, i held back, then jogged towards them with a huge grin on my face. I hold back my emotions quite a bit haha, even during jubilant occasions. The feeling was incredible, that i had played a part in this piece of hwa chong history. Every HCI student was smiling widely, we hugged, shook hands with everyone we met. We proved our worth, we did ramesh and mr tok proud, we did the team proud, we did the school proud.
Simply, incredible.
silverletal [Simple and Clean] 6:31 AM
