Thursday, January 04, 2007
I was on a friggin high on monday after scoring 4, all spectacular goals. First one i just feinted left and right, barely moving the ball, froze two defenders, pushed the ball past and scored. Finish wasn't great, but it was low, so hard for the keeper to reach down.
Second goal was scored when a loose ball bounced near the center, i was the first to reach it, had a great first touch, pushing the ball towards the so that it moved just in front of the semi-circle within a split second. Didn't really dribble past any, but the sudden burst towards their goal allowed we to tap ir in.
Third goal was brrr fuzzy, all i remembered was getting a loose balll and seeing zheng wei and kaiye in front of me, kind of instinctively pushed the ball here and there, anticipating that they would commit or freeze while the ball was under my control. Managed to weave through the both of em, saw iype and raised my leg in midair to see if he would come out for the block. He didn't, so i went for a pop, another low shot that fizzled beneath the keeper's body.
(TO THE CRIES OF "SICK" BY BX)
Fourth goal was really satisfying and i felt fantastic when i scored it. I found myself with the ball at the left side of the court, just inside my own half, drove the ball forwards and saw a possible challenge coming in so i did a stepover to ward it off (i don't know if it fooled anyone but it was bascially just to shield the ball by making the defender freeze for a sec).
I was hugging the left wall at that moment, my left leg pushed it towards the center where only aran was there. The thought of using the stepover again flashed acrossed my mind, so i did it with my right, saw aran flailing or something, and following the stepover of my right leg, my left leg swept the ball to the right and i just whacked it. Again, not a great finish but the low shot meant the keepr couldn;t reach down fast enough.
Why was it so damn satisfying? Cause i used the stepover and beat a man successfully, got past three men (i think), but basically its because i felt that goal combined the two parts of dribbling, that is close control and doing tricks. I hadn't got past people by using stepovers instinctively previously, but this time i did. I practiced at home, my close control and the stepovers, and it paid off.
It was a great day that day, played with confidence, didn't over-dribble (the times i did were mainly loose balls or within the opponents half i think...), had a good team that day that passed the ball fairly well (better than the usual standard anyway. It's only one day, so i won't get carried away, but it was a confidence-booster and gave me further belief in my ability.
There's still a long way to go definitely, my left foot needs to improve much more, my passing too. I need to reach the stage where i can one-touch comfortably with my left foot. I need to be better at ball control, i fumbled quite a bit when receiving passes that bounced a bit.
I believe people who play street should be much better technically, and our short passing should definitely be better than field soccer players, but in my opinion ours is pretty terrible. We can play simple passes with little pressure, accurately, but when quick interchange of passes, one=touch-passing or simple through balls, our passing is more often than not inaccurate. Damien's batch is much better at that, and i don't think they're ant bit more talented.
Its simply the waythey play, and we ought to do that too. Play a passing game, play beautiful, rather than the frustrating direct balls sent. I'm kind of envious whenever the team of aran,zheng,iype,kaisky play together because thats the only time anyone plays smooth, flowing football. I had that experience in sec 2 with wincoln and zhu hui, but chances to play like that are rare for me nowadays.
Hmm, if i could, and i couldn't pick aran-zheng-iype-kaiye, then i'd say i would have bingxiang and zhenghao as forwards and me and wincoln as the back two. Actually i kind of feel pity for bing xiang because i think he'd much rather play striker or midfield than a goalkeeper, and the thing is, at least on street, he's a very good attacker. He holds the ball up well, he makes good runs into space, his finishing is pretty good, his dribbling isn't bad either.
But then, maybe he'd get the chance when we go JC, since i'm quite sure Tobias only wants to play as a keeper. That's life i guess.
silverletal [Simple and Clean] 5:52 AM
