Sunday, March 18, 2007
Today was the Predator trial.
Before that, i was trying to get some Predator boots but there weren't any. I felt it was a waste of money to buy it, so i didn't do it. I worried of course...but i'm remembering the ways to stop worry, and it worked. I just did what i could and let fate decide (:
Weijie gave me one of his predator shoes (too small for him, he has another 2-3 pairs), so i just hoped for the best and went with wincoln. Hmm, Adidas is quite rich eh, it organised this event and gave away a lot of free stuff. The pitch was awesome, the balls were great, pheww! But, the Predator shoe i was wearing was pretty worn out, and the pitch was kind of morning-dewish wet, so it felt quite slippery. Also, it was one size too big...a problem i somewhat managed to counteract by wearing 3 layers of socks.
The slippery part...i can't do much, hopefully i can get an Adidas Predator by April 8th then i can get better grip mmm (:
The selection trial was a 5v5 on the field, i had this small, ANGMOH kid called ben daly on my team, this rather big guy called Kiran, and two other people by the name of Jun and D. I told myself not to worry, just enjoy myself (:, get some confidence into these legs of mine and i'll have a good chance of entering the next round.
I would say, i had a rather good game considering that i wasn't used to the shoe and it was quite slippery with it on. I couldn't grip and control the ball as well i would have liked, but i was happy that i was fairly confident with myself.
Defensively, i made about 3 tackles where the guy pushed the ball too close to me, i went ahead and cut it off, placing my body between him and the ball. The guy tried to get the ball back with a bit of pushing but i managed to hold him off all the same and keep possession. He didn't foul me though, i think all of his challenges were quite fair (:, though the referee didn't think so on one occasion. Then, there were another 2 tackles i made where i didn't get possession. I managed to tackle the ball but it went out of bounds so it was their ball but no one got past me (:
I made a few decent interceptions where my first touch was alright, and one block where i threw my body at the shot.
Now offensively, the not-used-to-shoe and slippery-feet gave me some problems but i managed all the same. I couldn't do my fanciful trickery, but my ball control and overall dribbling was good enough to get me by the other players. I just shifted the ball where i wanted, accelerated when i saw the space, and in the end made two impressive dribbles from my half all the way to theirs. One, i wasn't sure what happened, by the other one i managed to burst past the whole opposing team except for the keeper and a defender, i looked up and cut the ball back, away from the defender to the two strikers on my team. Meh, they fluffed the one-on-one but good tries anyways.
Then, there was a loose ball near their goal, situated for my left foot to shoot. My left foot is my weaker fooot of course, but with my training and focus, i managed to get a decent contact on the ball which the keepr saved but looked good on me too hehe. Lolllll, and once i tried to do a patrick-viera-combo-bergkamp run i saw on this bergkamp vid i have. Kiran was holding the ball and looking for options and i was on the other side of the field, so i ran a really curved run behind the defenders and kiran sent a pretty good, hard, accurate pass which was unforunately cut out.
As for my general play...not very happy with that. My passing was decent, didn't do anything special, but i did slightly mispass one ball when i wasn't looking at my pass.Why? Because i was looking at the field, then felt confident to pass without looking at the ball and so i did. Simple as that. Then there was once the-errr WE HAD A KICK IN AND THE GUY KICKED TO ME AND I WASN'T CONCENTRATING AND I LET IT SLIP PASS ME. And it was going out for a corner to the opposing side, but i chased it down all the same, slid, kicked in back to goal, executing a sort of sliding-kick back to my goal. (WHERE THE KEEPER WAS, NOT AN OWN GOAL). It was about10-20 centimetres out of play, but i think they LOVE MY DETERMINATION and let it play on all the same. I thought my sliding kick thing was really impressive though, because i'd be impressed seeing anyone have the heart and determination to do that.
Anyway, i felt i was the best player on my team, at least the player who performed the best. Nerves and all that can always get you, and kiran looks to be quite a good player but his performance wasn't that good, so i'd only say i think my performance was the best. Felt confident that i would be in the top 40, seeing as they were choosing 40 out of a 100, meaning all you'd have to do was to be above average and i was in my game.
Selection time wasn't really cool, i tried to tell myself not to think too much and get nervous, but they announcer was announcing quite a lot of names, and i think me and wincoln thought we wouldn't be in. But eventually, we were just called late, we both got in, my name was called out first, then another guy, then wincoln, CHEERS TO HIM (:.
There were some interesting stuff to note. Ben daly, the small guy, was called in at the last moment. I think he's secondary 1, though my first impression was a primary school guy, but he seems to be from united world college, and secondary 1's are quite small too. But i was wondering what the people up there felt when they saw this small guy was chosen ahead of em lollll. Me and wincoln seemed to be the younger peeps there. Oh, and there was a girl who played mmmmhhmm, she's not bad, and according to wincoln, "very good
for a girl" i didn't say that kay!
OH AND IMA get a free Adidas jersey just for getting into the top 40 hehe (:
Im glad i wasn't in tunit though, wouldn't feel like i achieved anything because 40 people were supposed to be chosen and i think only 40-50 people turned up...
Yes, and i do think i can perform significantly better if i had ADIDAS PREDATOR BOOTS SO I NEED ONEEEE TO MAKE IT INTO SPAIN!
silverletal [Simple and Clean] 9:09 AM
