If Benitez is still complaining of his lengthening list of injured players, he should speak to me. Marine Sunday is simple injury-ravaged. In my years of being with the team, I had never been so hard pressed. Eventually, we could only come up with 8 players and out of 12 guest players invited, 4 agreed to lend their limbs to support our cause, though Austin brought his fellow country man without prior informing me, and that made 5 guest players. Except for Austin who played for us once last week, the rest were new to Marine Sunday and that was one of the reasons for the shambolic display in the 1st half, not because of the quality of the guest players but we were adapting to each other. With a Spaniard in goal and a Nigerian leading the line upfront, we embraced diversity, didn’t we? The other reason being the sheer number of guest players prompted us to forsake the 4-2-3-1 line-up in favour of the conventional 4-4-2. On hindsight, we should not have as our midfield was simply overrun in the 1st half. The absence of our regular defenders, especially our fullbacks, further worsened the situation and we capitulated to their flank assaults, similarly to last week’s encounter. The stand-in right fullbacks, Mike and Brandon, would rather forget the 1st half outing, for sure.
Last week, we were outplayed by Quality Veterans, this week we were soundly beaten by Quality Young Boys. And they are really boys, most of them just completed their A-level last year and are currently in national service. How about that, not even half of our age! They looked geeky and nerdy when they stepped onto the pitch and we thought we could offer them some experience or two. But we were kicked in our butts by them. They played simple passing football, always looking up for players to pass and putting the ball into space. They were confident but without being cocky. Our 1st half was horrendous, the worst 45 minutes we have ever witnessed. They snatched a 3 – 0 lead by the 15th minute and ended the half with a commanding 5 – 2 lead. We recovered to play much better in the 2nd half and actually won this half, though it was not enough to reverse the deficit.
We played quite decent football in the opening 5 minutes but a Route One football opened the floodgate for QYB. A long punting ball from their keeper was back-headed by their striker, left totally unmarked in the final third, for his fellow strike partner who waltzed past our 2 flat-footed central defenders, Chor Guan and Jerome, playing together for the 1st time, and lobbed the ball over our guest goalkeeper, Saul, whose split second of hesitation in coming off his line proved costly. 2 moments of ball-watching cost us further 2 goals. Sensing the lack of understanding in our defenders and the lack of swiftness in our feet, QYB played intelligent football by causing us confusion with their constant passing of the ball in between our defenders into space in the penalty box. 2 such attempts caught our defence line square and their forwards beat the offside line to tuck the ball past our keeper. Before the match could pass the quarter of an hour mark, we found ourselves 3 goals down. Each time, our left fullback, Chwee Leng, let out his outbursts at our other defending colleagues for not tracking their players in the box. And that prompted him to switch himself to the right back position to plug the gap. We reduced the deficit through an uncommon goal from the most unlikely source. Teck Chye rolled a short corner to Austin who then curled in a rather soft cross towards goal. Kian Hwa, standing in front of the keeper, missed connecting with the ball but surprisingly, he was the first to react to the rebound, off a clearance on the line, by out-jumping their defender and heading the ball past their stranded keeper. 3 – 1. We saw some light at the end of the tunnel but it was quickly diminished when Jerome, caught flat-footed by their striker’s sudden turn in the box, had to resort to manhandling this striker, stopping him in his track. The referee pointed to the spot and the subsequent conversion widened their lead to 4 – 1! The only piece of decent football in the half involved Kian Hwa and Chip, another of our guest players, on the left but Kian Hwa’s subsequent well-placed cross into the box was not given due justice as our Nigerian import was still strolling in from afar. But we capitalised on their weak spot, i.e. their keeper was a tad suspicious in dealing with crosses, again. Teck Chye floated in another corner for Chor Guan to head the ball emphatically past QYB’s keeper, who again looked like a forlorn pedestrian. 4 – 2! Any faint hope of further narrowing the deficit was once again dashed by the fluent football of QYB. Another diagonal pass into our penalty box once again caught our defenders flat and their striker had another easy time tucking the ball past our custodian. 5 – 2! Austin almost reduced the deficit again when he juggled the ball superbly past 2 defenders but facing the onrushing keeper, his final attempt was not strong enough and QYB’s defender rushed back in time to prevent the ball from trickling over the line. It looked like a high-scoring match at half-time.
Refused to be cowed, we stepped up game with a much better 2nd half performance. A few players deserved commendation. Simon stepped in to partner Jerome in central defence, allowing the over-worked Chor Guan to take a breather. Chwee Leng insisted on plugging the gap in our right defence position and Chip gamely filled in the left back position, playing in that position for the 1st time but he was not short of quality in it. Weng Khong, always 2nd best in receiving passes in the 1st half, switched to central midfield and imposed himself with a robust and physical display, often disrupting their advances with his gallant challenges. Chor Guan later came into the game to take over from our Nigerian import, who flattered to deceive, and he injected a new-found sense of urgency in our attacks. We imposed far much better in this half and those young boys were often put off by our challenges on the ball, forcing them to shoot from outside the box. Our game plan was to score an early goal and take it from there, and we did. Their defender handled the ball outside the box and Teck Chye spotted the keeper was out of position and picked his spot to bury the ball in the net from the resultant free-kick. 5 – 3 and game on! Chor Guan replaced Austin, who drifted out of the game, and almost immediately announced his presence with a bang. From defending a corner, his galloping run propelled him to receive a through pass from Kian Hwa on a breakaway, but his shot went wide. Kian Hwa then put in another decent cross from the left but KC, another Nigerian, scooped the ball over the bar from less than 6 yards out. He was presented with another opportunity in the box by Teck Chye but in trying to be flamboyant, he took one touch too many in the box instead of hitting the ball at goal. His additional touch allowed QYB’s defenders to close him down. Another well-worked move from the left to the middle set Weng Khong up to shoot from far but QYB’s keeper managed to get his hand to the ball to prevent it from going into the top right-hand corner of the goal. Brandon, standing in between the posts in this half, was hardly threatened but in the dying moments before the final whistle, he was alert to dive to his left to deny QYB their 6th goal.
If there was any consolation, well, we won the 2nd half though the final score 5 – 3 spoke for itself.
Man of The Team: Chwee Leng (5 out of 8 votes)
His desire to get back at the match stood out. His fitness has improved a lot, nowadays he has enough energy to expend, F players and shout instructions on the pitch J. And he finished the match without being substituted. Black Dragon was our Man:
- MOTM Chwee Leng - Played with great energy despite the heat and the non-stop running opponents.
- motm - Chwee Leng easily stand out from the rest, in a game that most did not played well. He was always shouting instruction to players, doing well in the right back position. I almost think he needs an oxygen tank at the end of the game.
- IT was not easy to play with almost some many first-time guests today. we were disjointed and so it's hard to pick an outstanding player. no doubt most had to over-extend today, but motm goes to leng for making the right side safe in the second half, after astutely identifying the problem that plaque us in the first.
- I think Chwee Leng and Chor Guan badly wanted to make a difference in the game. I think they held up the Marine Sunday invitational team. My tip for Chwee Leng.
- Chwee Leng for stepping up to be counted. A very accomplished display in the 2nd half as right fullback.
Teck Chye, not surprisingly, was the only one who could take these young lads on. But, not surprisingly again, fitness hampered him:
“Motm was T Chye. He played well when most of us were off form that day.”
“Motm is teck chye- did a lot of work in the center.”
One solo vote placed him 3rd:
“MOTM to kian hwa for his endless running, unselfish play, made several crosses.”
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