Match #21 (9 May 09): Deja-vu.....Almost

Lightning almost struck twice two weeks in succession for Marine Sunday. There were several similarities with last week’s match that at one stage, the feeling of déjà-vu dawned on us. Just like last week, we conceded our first goal directly from a corner when we were comfortably leading 3 – 1 before we shot ourselves in our feet by giving away a late penalty. Thankfully, we managed to hold out the final nail-biting 10 minutes that merely produced verbal bickering than further goals. We narrowly avoided throwing away what looked like a comfortable win. We could do with less self-imposed anguish if our forwards had been clinical – we missed three sitters! – and a higher level of concentration in our keeper. Among the four forwards – Teck Wah, Gan, Kian Hwa and Leo, rotating to front the line, only Gan did admirably well as he notched a brace. Kian Hwa was in his usual assist mode scurrying down the flanks and supplying his crosses, including setting up two sitters for Leo but the latter simply had a bad day in office. Teck Wah was out of sorts throughout the match with an uncharacteristic glaring miss when presented with a sitter, and his only notable contribution was a fine cross from the right for Gan to equalise.

Eagleboyz (EB) found the pitch a tad too hard for their liking as their passes went astray early in the match. We settled down earlier and soon, we broke through on the right when Kian Hwa evaded their offside calls but Gan’s header to meet Kian Hwa’s cross was too tame to trouble EB’s keeper. EB played a high line that kept catching our static forwards offside but they were struggling to keep up with the pace of See Chiang on the left. He timed his breakthrough well to position himself with a scoring opportunity but his hasty effort screwed the ball wide. Teck Chye then picked out Mike in the box, who found the net with a header but the effort was ruled offside. At the other end, the defence was well marshalled by Chor Guan and Hock Leong, ably supported by Chung Wen and Ng on both sides. Chor Guan showed that he was back to his best as he timely broke up their attacks with ease. Mid way through the 1st half, Teck Wah and Leo replaced the Kian Hwa-Gan combination and things began to liven up. Both sides came close to open the account. A well-worked passing and off-the-ball running involving See Chiang, Simon and Mark released Mark to advance into the box. Mark had time to look up and presented Teck Wah at the near post with a sitter. It was a too-good-to-miss scoring opportunity but to everybody’s disbelief, our top scorer scooped the ball over the post. Teck Wah continued to work hard but he further ballooned twice, leaving us wondering what (or shall we allude it to who?) had consumed him the night before. At the other end, EB was denied by a brave block by Chung Wen when he put himself in the firing line of a long-range effort that was packed with so much power and it looked destined for goal before Chung Wen’s intervention. The half finished scoreless.

Second half hardly moved into 2nd gear and we found ourselves a goal down, courtesy of a lapse in concentration by Brandon in goal. A corner was floated in from the left and with nobody in close proximity to harass him, Brandon could have plucked the ball from the air. Even without catching the ball, he could have punched it away to safety but instead, he palmed it against the underside of the post and the referee judged that the subsequent bounce brought the ball over the line despite Chwee Leng’s last-ditch clearance. 0 – 1 down! We did not let our heads down and the new pairing of Teck Wah and Gan reaped immediate dividend. Gan chested the ball onto the path of Teck Wah and then continued advancing into the box to meet Teck Wah’s cross from the right. Gan flicked the ball high enough over their tall keeper for our equaliser. It was simple football – pass and move – that was pleasing to the eyes. 1 – 1! Next, Simon was alert to intercept a poor back pass and rounded the keeper before, surprisingly with his left foot, chipping the ball over the recovering keeper! Gan was lurking behind the keeper to nod the ball home 2 – 1! Gan was surely in irrepressible form and his quest for a hat-trick was denied by the earlier provider, Simon who failed to notice that Gan was in a better scoring position in the box. Simon decided to beat the keeper on his own but this time round, EB’s keeper put his height to good use as he blocked Simon’s chip with ease. Mike was felled in the box but the referee dubiously ruled that the tackle took place outside the box. Teck Wah put paid to the poor referee decision when he drove a low shot from the subsequent free-kick. His initial effort was allegedly blocked by Melvin in the box. Melvin’s block seemed to have confused EB’s keeper for a split second and Simon followed up on the loose ball with a venomous half volley to find the net. 3 – 1 and we looked on cruise control. Our defence mopped up their forays into our area with relative ease. Kok Hock alternated between stopper and sweeper like hands to gloves and his assuring display reinforced our depth in the defence department.

We could have been home high and dry but it was not to be. Kian Hwa did well enough to find space on both flanks to set up his fellow strike partner, Leo with two sitters but Leo, clearly not accustomed to be the beneficiary of such too-good-to-be-true scoring opportunities, failed to capitalise on both moments of glory. In between Leo’s lack of potency in front of goal, See Chiang proved just as wasteful when he fluffed another shot in a similar position to his earlier effort in the 1st half. EB kept up the tempo of the match. Teck Chye lost possession of the ball when he indulged in one dribble too many. In his earnest effort to win back possession, he put in a wholehearted, fearless tackle in the box to deny their winger a direct shot at our goal. Teck Chye got to the ball first but the momentum of the tackle carried through to bring down the winger as well. Referee contentiously pointed to the spot and Brandon, just like last week, was again close to making a save to deny their penalty effort. 3 – 2 now and things looked nervy on our side. Aided by a few cool heads in Mark, Hock Leong, Kok Hock and Simon, we rode through the final 10 minutes with no further damage done apart from one yellow card flashed at Kian Hwa, who was elbowed in the face, for retaliating.

Final score was a close 3 – 2 win but it was only half a story.

Man of The Match: Simon (5 votes)
This must be the closest round of nominations in the season so far. Both our midfield generals – Simon and Mark – tied on 5 votes each. The tie breaker is simple, attendance counts in situations like this and here, MoTM is awarded to Simon.
“MOTM Simon. While Mark was the anchor in the defensive midfield, it allowed Simon to be more creative in attack. I felt Chwee Leng also had a good game.”
“motm: simon. complemented his good work in midfield with one pinpoint assist n one opportunistic follow up from a equally brilliant 'defensive' block by melvin.”
“MOTM - Simon. Control midfield well. Good anticipation for the assist and a goal. Play simple football and kept his cool throughout.”
“MOTM is Simon. Great all round play and a well taken goal.”
“MOTM goes to Simon for his all-round superb performance - tireless work in the midfield area, coming back to help up in defence & putting up several good assists in the attack & netting one goal for himself. Though Gan is not my MOTM but he is another player worth mentioning with his confidence coming back & looking forward to more goals from him.”

Well done, Mark! No doubt about your quality and we could certainly do more with your regular turnouts:
“MOTM: Mark. Really hard this one cos central midfielders played brilliantly and completely shut out their players. Both goals came off dead ball so no worthy attack out of open play and for that we have to thank Simon, Chye and Mark. See Chiang tearing down the flank also created loads of opportunities for us. Brandon was steady as hell except for the corner. Our defence played well too but it all started with the central guys and I must say Mark was just brilliant.”
“It's a toss between Simon and Mark. I go for Mark for his overall command of midfield and determined performance which has allowed us to dictate the pace of the game.”
“Motm. Mark, good control at midfield, stop most of the opponent attack fm center midfield, thus our defender got bit of time to support midfield n striker”
“MOTM goes to Mark. Industrious performance in midfield. Impressive me with his energy level and shown dominance in the center despite facing more skillful opponents.”
“Vote goes to Mark, who controlled the game from midfield very well.”

Gan was just 1 vote behind:
“Motm to Gan for getting into the box with perfect timing to score 2 goals. A constant threat to opponents as he was always first to the balls in their half, then passing well to help MS build attacks.”
“MOM for me is Gan who scored two well taken goals and had a part in both their creation as well.”
“Motm to gan for scoring the two goals. Held on to ball well and was a handful for their defenders today. Lively play and good confident touches that left their defenders struggling whenever he played.”
“Gan – a tentative 1st half performance was replaced by a match-winning display in the 2nd half! More than made up for the other ineffective strikers!”

The remaining 3 votes were split among the 2 KHs and See Chiang:
“KH: The most hard working players of the team. Also created a goal by working hard to create a beautiful cross resulted in a headed goal.” [Note: this nominator later confirmed his nomination was meant for KH but he got his facts wrong. The one who put in the beautiful cross that resulted in a headed goal was Simon, not KH. KH did put in some decent crosses but they were clearly not good enough to the extent that our forwards refused to score from such lousy assists :D]
“MOTM - Kok Hock (it was not an easy task to contain their strike force but Kok Hock was there to deal with it effectively. I thought he was very composed despite the constant pressures towards the end of the game)…….. Btw, my friend (goalkeeper) commented that despite our age (he thinks we are all above 40) he is impressed that we kept running at their defence. Obviously he is referring to our strikers...... well done to all the strikers.....”
“Motm - See Chiang....make very good runs down the left when he is playing, full of energy. Too bad did not score on 2 occasions”.