There were 4 similarities between this and the last encounters with Riverlife Church. Firstly, our star player, Teck Chye, notched a brace in each of both matches. Secondly, the winning team scored 4 goals. Thirdly, the losing side could barely assemble a sizeable squad of sufficient number of legs to last the match. Fourthly, the losing side’s regular goalkeeper was absent and the stand-in custodian could have done better. The big difference? We emerged victorious in the first encounter; Riverlife were the worthy winners in the re-match where we were never in control. If there was any consolation, well, we hold a better goal difference over the two matches.
Marine Sunday had to again call up 2 guest players – the 50-years old Yap and the 46-years old James to make up 12 players. Ironically, both lasted the entire match for us whereas several of our own players had to take turn to take a breather, especially in the last 25 minutes of the match. We certainly welcomed the sight of the Tang brothers – the elder one went on to make a huge difference, the younger one tried hard to make a difference. Short of our midfield dynamic duo of Simon and Mark, we would later concede much ground in the middle of the pitch, although James and Teck Chye gallantly tried to impose. Without our regular keeper, even the supposed stand-in, Gan, was late for the match. That forced Kian Hwa, a blind bat at night, to stand in between the posts. Hock Leong, upon realising this, uttered “You keeper? Jiat-lat, we liao chor!” [2nd sentence: Darn, we lose big!]. His premonition eventually came true as we indeed lost quite big, 2 – 4 to be precise.
Surprisingly, Riverlife did not start off with the high tempo, like they did in the previous match, even though we only had 10 men to kick off. They did test Kian Hwa early in the match. Chwee Leng’s lethargy allowed their pony-tailed left winger to nudge him aside and put in a high looping cross but to every Marine Sunday player’s much relief, KH gathered the ball with relative ease and a certain assurance. Riverlife’s preference to go slow allowed us to settle down. The arrival of our 11th player, Gan, restored numerical parity but even then, we hardly threatened them until Teck Chye did his magic. Though playing as the holding midfielder, Teck Chye advanced into Riverlife’s box and robbed their defender of the ball near the byeline. He waltzed past a couple of players before unleashing a grounder from an angle. The ball slipped under Riverlife’s custodian’s body for our opening goal. Riverlife was soon denied a certain equaliser. Their burly striker whipped in a ferocious first-time volley from way outside the box but Kian Hwa astonished himself with his he-thought-it-was-long-gone reflex in his 42-years old body by pulling off a blinding one-handed save to push the ball away for a corner. The greatest compliment was when the Riverlife’s striker himself went forward to acknowledge KH’s rather unbelievable save. Though our stand-in-of-the-stand-in keeper went on to deny Riverlife on a few occasions with his quick off-the-line clearances, his lack of height was exploited by Riverlife for their equalizer. Weng Khong gave the ball away after receiving a pass from Chwee Leng, and went on to foul Riverlife’s forward as he tried to win it back. Riverlife’s guest player coolly placed the ball from the resultant direct free-kick into the top left-hand corner of the goal, leaving KH embarrassed for his poor positioning and short fingers. The first half ended one apiece.
Whilst Marine Sunday continued with the tired limbs for the 2nd half, Riverlife introduced at least 3 pairs of fresh legs – a lively right winger No 22, another tall burly striker and another pony-tailed Malay player, albeit a taller version. All three, particularly No 22, went on to wreak havoc and inflicted heavy damages on us. No 22, aged 19 and not even half the age of most of us, had a role in all the three goals that Riverlife put past us. With the 2nd half barely 5 minutes old, Riverlife seized the lead. The taller pony-tailed’s corner from our right caught our line of defenders guilty of ball-watching and their No 22 shook off the attention of Chor Guan to stick his right foot to divert the ball into our net. 2 – 1! The Tang brothers enhanced their sibling love once again as they conjured up our equalising goal. And it was a beauty worth rewinding the tape over and over again in the years to come. We won a free-kick outside the box and Teck Wah put the ball to the far side of the six-yards box for Teck Chye to power in a stupendous header that Riverlife’s custodian could only watch in dismay. 2 – 2! From positioning to reading the flight of the ball to the eventual execution, hardly anybody else in the social football scene could do better than Teck Chye. We were quietly confident to take the game away from them but fatigue set in soon after. With several of our players taking turn to take a breather, we began to lose our shape. Like a pack of cards, we fell apart and disintegrated rather alarmingly. Teck Chye remained the only livewire of Marine Sunday but when he also inevitably left the pitch for a break, the fire in us seemed to have extinguished as well. Great credit to both our guest players, James and Yap, and our Mr Rock to last the entire match. Mr Rock, almost a head shorter than their striker, played intelligently to shut the striker out, although the striker’s superior fitness eventually won the day. The first change started with Chwee Leng grasping for air and signalling for Mike to take over the right-back role. Before the replacement could settle down, he was caught cold. Riverlife’s No 22 took a snap shot from outside the box. Though Kian Hwa had the angle covered but he spilled the ball out to his right. KH recovered to cover the loose ball, but he was confronted by three Riverlife players in the box, all ready to pounce on the loose ball, with Mike trying desperately to cover all of them. Their shorter pony-tailed Malay player was first to the ball and shot past the advancing KH for their 3rd goal. Though Riverlife had one player sent off for kicking at Mike, we could not take advantage of the numerical superiority due to lack of fitness. Much to our credit, we tried our earnest to snatch the equaliser but were punished for leaving a big gap behind. A quick counter-attack enabled four Riverlife players to confront our Yap and Mr Rock. The ball was squared to their No 22, who side-stepped past Yap before letting fly a shot at goal, which KH could only parry the ball onto the path of their tall striker. Though obviously in an offside position, their striker tucked the ball into the empty net for their goal No 4. That demoralising goal took the remaining wind out of our systems as most of us could hardly walk, let alone win the ball. Mr Rock pointed out to the referee of the offside position but his voice was hardly audible and his finger-pointing was feeble, the signs of deflation in us could not be any clearer.
The referee prevented further damage inflicted onto us when he whistled for the match to end. 4 – 2 to Riverlife and they went on to immerse themselves in holy water!
Man of The Team: Teck Chye (6 out of 10 votes)
Teck Chye seems to have rediscovered his best form. He was by miles the shining beacon among us on that night!
“MOM is Teck Chye for his beautifully headed goal, the waltzing done before the 1st goal and leading the team's charge in almost all the attacks.”
“Vote goes to Teck Chye. For the two goals and his overall play for the whole match.”
“MOTM - My vote goes to Chye for his 2 well taken goals. In addition, his willingness to fall back to defence is good to see.”
“MOTM is Teck Chye - 2 well taken goals!”
“When it comes to class, it just doesn’t go vanished. An eye for goal, not one but two, plus tenacity in winning challenges actually make him a rare breed of footballers. We are glad to have one such classy player. Teck Chye – the Man of The Match for us!”
“motm to Teck Chye for two stupendous goals, the 2nd goal in particular would have been replayed many times on tv if we were in the EPL :) KH would have gotten the vote if we had won though for his numerous saves. One of the opponents even remarked to his teammate that our keeper 'damn good'.”
For the 2nd successive match, KH came in 2nd. Not that the self-imposed suspension had done him good but he reckoned that to get into contention, it is to play out of position :)
“motm - you lor........make a lot of brilliant saves....nothing else to say....just too bad we lost.”
“MOTM = KianHwa. Regardless the no. of goals conceded, he performed remarkably well. Outstanding goalkeeping, good control of the 6 yard box and make couple of superb saves.”
James and Mr Rock gathered 1 vote each:
“MOTM to James our guest player who has a kind of finesse in weaving passes to players upfront & has good control in the central midfield area…Instrumental in our team play.”
MOTM - Hock Leong for the hard tackling specially in the last 5 mins when he came from behind the opponent striker to steal a through ball.
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