It's A Goal......keeping Crisis!?

Report: A.Y.Z

Prelude

The venue and time was set. The players were present. The weather was fantastic. Fantastic, however, was not the word to describe McLucky FC's communication skills, for there was a mix up over the venue where the match was to be played. Damai Secondary School or Jalan Damai? No one seem to knew where it was until further confirmation was done by Sin Cheng. 13 men seemingly lost in Bedok Reservoir Road...... An ominous sign, perhaps, of things to come?

Venue: Soccer field adjacent to Telok Kurau Primary School
Time : 2.30pm
Opposition: Sin Cheng's Friend's Team (SCFT)* ---> (for reference in text highlights below)

Line up: Nicky (GK), Chun Wei (DR), Ee Yang (DC), Zhan Wei (DC), Bing De (DL), Siu Chun (MR),
Leslie (MC), Joseph (MC), Sin Cheng (ML), Boon Hui (ST), Kee Hong (ST)
[ 4 - 4 - 2 Formation ]

1st half highlights

Kick-off as the referee blows his whistle to signal the start of the match. The pitch was surprisingly wet and muddy even though the hot afternoon sun was scorching down on the players' back. The action was fast and furious, with the opponents having more possession of the ball. McLucky FC spent a good deal of time on the backfoot with play concentrated down our right flank. Even our resident photographer, Jun Han, was complaining that he could not get hold of any decent shots of the players in action as he was situated on the left side of the pitch.

With increasing pressure from the opponents, the inevitable came in the 10th minute of play, when a long ball was launched into McLucky's penalty box. A goalmouth scramble ensued and No.11 of SCFT* was on hand to force the ball into the back of the net. 1-0 to the oppostion.

McLucky played with a greater sense of urgency after SCFT opened their account in the 10th minute, with Kee Yong coming close with a shot on goal in the 15th minute, albeit off target. Substitutions followed soon after with Edwin coming in at the right wing and Siu Chun shifting forward to a striker's role. Boon Hui was taken off.

Kee Yong gets in a shot during the 20th minute of play. The shot is off target but the ball is kept in play. However the resultant cross from the byline was disappointing and the ball goes out of play. At the half-hour mark, Team Captain Weide finally arrives at the venue and throws himself straight into the fray. He slots in at central defence and displaces Zhan Wei. Sin Cheng comes off and Edwin shifts to the left flank, with Chun Wei moving up to the right flank. Rayner takes up the position on the right side of defence.

Near the 40th-minute mark, Chun Wei is hacked down by the opponent and appeared to have taken a slight knock. He is subsequently replaced by Sin Cheng. At the stroke of half time Kee Yong manages yet another shot on goal, but the result is indifferent as the ball sails over the goal. Half time and the McLucky lads are down by a goal...Will it be a game of two halves for them? Will they spark a revival in the second half after their rather ordinary performance in the first? There is an awkward silence amongst the players as Weide prepares to discuss the fine tuning of the team tactics with them......

2nd half highlights

An unwanted situation occurs during the half time interval when McLucky stand-in goalkeeper for the match, Nicky, bids us goodbye and leaves just before the start of the second half. Perhaps he has an emergency to attend to? Or is he frustrated at being unable to be deployed as an out-field player? No one seems to know and frankly, no one seems to care......

A out-field player had to be sacrificed to fill in the gap between the sticks. In came Rayner as the new goalie, with Bing De replacing him at right back and Zhan Wei coming in at left back. Chun Wei regains his role on the right wing and Boon Hui reverts to his striker's role.

No. 21 of SCFT goes on a marauding run from his own half down the pitch and almost makes it to the penalty box on his own. Fortunately he is cut out by retreating defenders and the danger is nullified.

McLucky's build-up play comes to a climax when Chun Wei hits a long overhead through ball to Boon Hui in the penalty box. The latter was brought down in the area but the referee waves play on despite claims for a penalty. Following that, a long ball sails into opposition territory in the 50th minute. No. 17 of SCFT misses his clearance and allows Boon Hui to get hold of the ball, but the stout defender recovers well and outmuscles him to clear the danger.

53th minute. SCFT's attacking movement culminates into a open shot on goal, which No.8 takes with relish and power. The ball skids across the surface of the goal before hitting the bottom left post and into the goal. 2-0 to the opponents.

The misery does not end there for McLucky as a mix-up between the keeper and defenders allows SCFT to slot the ball into goal from long range after the keeper became entangled with his defenders while coming out to deal with the SCFT striker running down our right flank. Things are not looking too rosy for McLucky. 3-0 to SCFT.

Signs of a spirited comeback? Siu Chun dispossess No.17 as the latter tries to control a long ball from the McLucky half. He puts in a nicely weighted cross, but no one is at the far post to finish off the move. Opportunity wasted. McLucky's morale takes another dip when Leslie limps out with a foot blister with 20 minutes left to play.

With McLucky trying their very best to close down the opponents in their own half and pressuring them into losing the ball, their efforts finally paid off in the 72th minute when the referee awards a penalty to McLucky after Joseph was felled (and reacted rather theatrically) in the opposition penalty box. Kee Hong steps up and blasts the ball into the bottom right corner. 3-1 with less than 20 minutes to go.

Yet another opportunity was wasted in the 76th minute when no one was at the far post yet again to force the ball into the net after Sin Cheng had shot across the face of goal from the left flank. More bad news to follow as Joseph limps out with a muscle strain. McLucky have now ran out of usable substitutes. In comes a Malay man (who was watching the match from the sidelines) at the goalkeeper slot.

In the dying minutes of the match, Rayner was deployed as a makeshift striker with Edwin moving in to central midfield. SCFT almost made it 4-1 in the 85th minute when No.5 chased down a long ball into the penalty box. The central pairing of defenders close him down and clear the ball to safety. Then it was all over. Full Time Score: SCFT 3 - MFC 1

Post-Match Comments

As this is my first time reporting for McLucky FC, I did not really obtained many post-match comments from the McLucky lads personally. However, the comments from the ever out-spoken Team Captain Weide have provided much food for thought. I personally felt that this sentence summed up the day for McLucky FC...

"......the passing sucks lah......"

but the experience gained from this match was invaluable and it would help us in the future when preparing for matches against opponents of similiar playing style or when playing in simliar conditions as such.

My thoughts

I realised only during the second half that our defence line was playing pretty high up into the pitch and if we want to play with a line like that, we had better make sure either our defenders communicate with each other more or we would have to push the defence line backwards. Reason? For this particular match defenders did not communicate enough with one another, resulting in the occasional errant defender playing a striker on-side when the offside trap has to be set in motion.

Playing in a muddy pitch is one of the more unpleasant ordeals that a football player has to go through as the mud and uneven ground makes it difficult to even execute the simplest of passes. Since McLucky FC often plays with a short passing style, our tempo was seriously disrupted by the condition of the pitch during the match, resulting in a lacklustre performance. Perhaps we could incorporate the long ball tactic into our gameplan and familiarise ourselves with it so that we have a PLAN B when the occasion calls for it.

AND YES...We need a reliable Goalkeeper...A regular one... fast!!!