Sunday Evening At Turf City (1) - 15 January 2012

Whites: Look Liew, Vincent YKL, Cheng Poh, Damian, Rajseran, Amaresh, Elvin, Timmy
Reds: Wing Kong, Babs, Rajiv, Andrew, David M, Nordin, Lynz, Leo

Another Repeat Game which we had last Sunday where A Team was down by 2 and came back to win the game .

Whites had LL in Goal , Rockstar , Timmy and Damian in Defends with Elvin , Amaresh and Cheng Poh playing midfield and Vincent in Attack .

Reds had Lynz in Goal , Wing Kong, Andrew and Rajiv in defends , Leo , Nordin and David M in mid with Babs playing upfront.

Reds started off well attacking and Whites played slightly defensive . Some Good Keeping and Good Defense by Whites ensure that it remained 0-0 at least for good 2 mins . Leo did well with some of his dribbling skills and whites had some challenging moment especially defending against Leo , David M , Nordin and Babs .

Reds got their first goal and second came surprisingly from Rajiv with a cheeky shot . Whites had to change their strategy and played Rock Star in Attack with Vincent dropping to Defends . It took 5 mins after the kick off and Rockstar played a one to one with Elvin and not surprisingly , Elvin scored for Whites .

Rajiv pass was well intercepted by Rockstar and he took the shot and made it 2-2 .

At this point both teams were pressing for a goal and Whites basically had to get everyone to defend when Lynz pushed up and came close to get the winner when his shot hit the poll . Phew , and another TONJOL style shot by Wing Kong was well saved by Damian .

While Reds were busy marking Elvin and Rockstar , Vincent made a smart move pushing forward , beating one player and took a shot. That was one hell of a goal . Whites 3-2 Reds .

Another Fantastic Game , Could have been anyones game.

OVerall an enjoyable game.

Reds didn't create many clear chances to start with, but looked very sound in defence. Lynz started in goal as he had been playing from 4 to 5 pm. When Lynz came out of goal after about 20 minutes, Andrew went into goal, and David switched to right back. Almost immediately, Reds had more penetration up front and took a 1-0 lead.

Reds edged it for the next 15 minutes or so, during which time they went 2-0 up. Even when Whites pulled one back, Reds were still having slightly more of the game. I was in goal at this time, with Andrew at left back. However, having 2 newer players up front was beginning to undermine Reds' strategy, as Babs and Nordin weren't tracking back enough, and Leo, who hadn't played since the first quarter of 2011, was beginning to tire. I was trying to get Babs and Andrew to swap positions. I think Lynz had a similar idea, but somehow the message didn't get through.

My ball out from goal that was intercepted for the equaliser was a poor one. Good finish by Rockstar though. Reds still had their chances, including some very good ones, but missed a few before Lynz hit the post. Immediately after, a good run by Vincent and a great finish for the winner. Nordin finally switched to left back, but by then, Reds best chances had already come and gone, and the game ended soon after.

Reds needed to switch positions around at 2-1, which we didn't do. As Wing Kong pointed out after the game, it left Whites too much space in midfield, which they exploited, to win 3-2.

Like Rockstar said, good game. Great winning goal.

Yeah, Vince was on fire yesterday running riot all around the field with the amazing solo winning goal and multiple shot blocks with his body in defence.

On hindsight, Whites initial strategy of having the entire attack resting on the poor shoulders of Elvin wasn't a good one. As vaunted as his prowess, Elvin was again stifled by a lot of attention from Red defence, Kong being the major culprit who stuck to him like glue (after letting him slip past just 1 time last week). Andrew and David were also part of the very solid Red defence which denied Elvin time and again.

In order to deal with this, after Jiv's cheeky shot and 2nd goal (which I shdv saved but was busy shouting for Whites to come back ;0) Rockstar then moved upto attack which made all the difference. With the very formidable twin threats of Raj and Elvin, Reds were suddenly looking vulnerable.

Like Jiv said, Lynz immediately created problems for Whites when he joined the fray in attack. It was hard to contain him with Nordin and Babs also moving around and switching angles quite a bit. However fortunately for Whites, if David or Andrew had joined in, we would have been in a lot of trouble but they didn't and Whites capitalised on this by launching their own attacks.

Kudos to Raj and Elvin for drawing us even. And it took a superlative effort from Vince to score the winning goal. Credit also to Whites for their adaptability in switching players and strategy according to game. After we went ahead 3-2, Elvin and Raj came back down to def to marshall the defence and preventing Reds from the vital equaliser.

Hot Sun afternoon, guess no more of the cool Dec weather...gotta work on the stamina this year.