Match #12 (11 Mar 2012): Dug Deep for satisfying 2-1 win

Estar Loco looked the type of team that fancies form over substance. Togged in the blue and black of Inter Milan, they were darn serious on what adorns them relatively young turks, with the captain (and then subsequent changes) taking time to put the armband on. Wah siah (accord the meaning according to whether u prefer the second or third intonation of the hanyu pinyin)!

We humble MS didn't have our usual captain to flaunt the kind of substance that matters, so we were left with our greying hair as indication that we could be of some small threat. Off the go, EL were playing it tight and pressing hard, albeit without any real threat in attack. We were compact in defence and more incisive in attack, and created a few chances that should have put us in a comfortable lead, but the first half ended with the match finely balanced.

The pattern of the match continued very much in the same vein and to our surprise, we went behind through a well-taken shot from their nifty forward. We turned the match around late on with 2 strikes from Wah, assisted by a long throw from Khong, and a free-kick delivery from Simon. Great spirit shown in a thoroughly deserving win!

Match #11 (26 Feb 2012): Convincing 3-1 Win Over KS' Blues

Of all the encounters with Kok Seng's Blues, this  must be the most convincing win. We could have scored another handful more, considering the glaring misses by Teck Chye and Weng Khong and 2 superb saves by their keeper to deny the Tang brothers.

Not suprisingly, both Tang siblings added to their tally and Woon's maiden goal of the season capped a fine performance, though the scoreline did not really reflect our domination, especially in the first half.

The win was marred by a serious injury to KH, whose unquestionable, but really stupid, committment to block a certain shot came up worse. As Teck Wah captured it on video, the tackle did KH's knee in.

Match #10 (26 Feb 2012): Brave Performance, Gritty Win

Our unbeaten streak of the new season looked set to come to a halt against Red Stars, which comprise a potent mix of late-30s and early-20s and have, among them, a few players who used to ply their trade in S-League. Their technique, movement, passing are simply 2 notches above us. Facing such formidable opponent and given the water-soaked pitch that made the condition even more treacherous for us, we put in the best shift of duty to date, grinding out an against-all-odds 3-2 win over them. The fact they applauded and paid generous compliments to us at the end of the match speaks volume of our grit and determination. Everyone of us worked our socks off for this hugely satisfying win.

The blistering pace that they set from the whistle stretched us thin and the match was hardly 10 minutes old when they opened accounts. Teck Chye equalised, though he looked a tad offside, when a fiercely determined Simon bulldozed his way in between 2 defenders for Teck Chye to benefit from. Simon then scored another of his trademark long-range goal from a free-kick just after the centre line to reverse the deficit at the break. Simon added to his goal tally with another cracker from outside box but Red Stars forced the match to the wire with a late goal to set up a pulsating finish. Our defence department comprising Melvin, Rock, Weng Kwan, Ng, Chwee Leng and Chung Wen could stand tall and proud against such pacy and skilful forwards of Red Stars. Well Done! Love it!

Match #9 (18 Feb 2012): A Disciplined Marine Sunday; A Fine Win

We put up a very disciplined performance to beat Team Orange 7-0 and kept our second clean sheet so far. No doubt, our strikers should grab the limelight but credit to our defence line, impressively marshalled by Melvin and fine performance from Rock and Chung Wen, both back after a spell on the sidelines through injury. Our guest player, Daniel, put in a fine shift of duty as left-back. Teck Chye (3), Teck Wah (2) and one each from Kama and Mike completed the rout.

Match #8 (12 Feb 2012): The Wind took out the Venom of Opponent

In any other matches, those two moments of individual brilliance from Teck Chye would have usually grabbed the limelight of this 5-3 win over Venom. But this win was actually masterminded by our resident feng-shui master, i.e. Melvin, who advised just before we kicked off the 2H that we should make use of the wind which was blowing against Venom. True enough, we scored two wind-assisted goals - Simon, from his trademark long range free-kick just after the centre line that swerved cruelly for Venom's custodian to deal with. Then the master himself swinged in a corner that seemed to hang eternally in mid air before it suddenly dropped just under the bar, again embarassing their keeper. Our master's advice clearly overshadowed every other thing.

Teck Chye, scorer of our 2nd and 4th goals, atoned for his countless misses in the last match with this pair of screaming beauties, one from each foot. The younger Tang opened the account for us after Chor Guan nodded the free-kick from Melvin perfectly onto the path of Teck Wah for the latter to deftly place the ball beyond the reach of Venom's keeper.

Venom, to their credit, kept pressing us and reducing the deficit to eventually equalise at 3-3. They thought they had the match in their hands but too bad, they don't believe in feng shui. And we have a practitioner in disguise, and a non-Chinese one. Full moon next, how should we play?

Match #7 (4 Feb 2012): 8-nil Romp

The one-sided scoreline was not reflective of ACME's quality. We know them, our past few encounters were close and evenly contested. For this match, they were not only deprived of their regular players but were also short in number, starting and ending the match with 10 players. We were in similar situation and had to call up 2 guest players.

We were disciplined throughout the match. Even with a 4-0 lead at half-time, we continued to press them hard and continued to breach their high defence line with our overlapping runs to find space.

Teck Wah (3 goals), Teck Chye (2, and he missed 4 other glorious opportunities in the 1st half!), Mike (2) and Kama completed the rout of ACME. And KH had 4.....assists :)

Match #6 (28 Jan 2012): MS 5 - 3 UBS, Kept The Momentum Going!

I wouldn't dare to use the label "great team" on ourselves. But after last Saturday's gritty performance, I think we could indulge ourselves with this label for a fleeting moment. When all the regulars turn up and play in their usual positions, it's a good team but it's a business-as-usual team. The character of the team is tested when it is short of a few regular players, especially for key positions, and others have to give up their usual and preferred positions to fill these vacant positions. And the team go on to achieve result. Then this team is better than good, perhaps still far from great but certainly not mediocre. And we were precisely better than just business-as-usual last Saturday against UBS. Yes, we had the insider information (in me) to capitalise on their weakest link - their inexperienced goalkeeper - and richly benefited from it, but isn't football about tactics as well?

Among the positions, I always feel that the most difficult, and thankless, positions to play are the central defensive pair. We were short of our regular central defenders but Gan and Simon stepped up admirably to fill in these roles and galvanised a much-deserved 5-3 win over UBS. No doubt they had a nervous 1st half display but 2nd half performance was solid, ably supported by our rock-steady fullbacks in Ng, Leo and Chwee Leng.

UBS' blistering pace in the opening 15 minutes of the match really unsettled us - they closed down on us fast, passed the ball quickly, had pacy forwards. Not surprisingly, they opened the account on the 7th minute when our defence was carved wide open by their fabulous forward, aptly named Fab, to cut-back and wrong-footed Simon and Gan before planting a stiff grounder past the rooted Brandon. For all the upperhand they had on us, UBS failed to leverage on that and their momentum was somewhat affected by a series of substitutions so early in the match. We regained our footing and began to find inroads. Mike has the tendency to frustrate us as he failed to make any good use of the 2 through balls presented to him. But he also has the knack of producing the unexpected pleasant surprise to knock in goal for us when we think otherwise. A sweeping counter-attack had Teck Wah break free on the right and his low cross into the box, bouncing twice enroute, was miraculously converted by Mike, even with a defender breathing down his back! 1-1.

Sensing the vulnerability in their inexperienced keeper, we began to single him by placing crosses and dead balls close to him, and our subsequent 4 goals resulted in one way or another from his poor handling of high balls. He failed to deal with an in-swinging corner from the left and the ball sailed directly into goal, with Kian Hwa claiming credit to that. But UBS restored parity when a defensive blunder by Gan, an intended back-header meant for Brandon, gifted possession to their pacy winger who then relayed the ball to his forward to shoot past the out-of-position Brandon. 2-2 at the break.

With a stroke of luck, we had our 3rd goal. Teck Wah arched backward to his maximum to reach out to a cross. His resultant header lacked any power but somehow UBS' custodian failed to deal with the looping ball, and it dropped just below the bar. 3-2. UBS gallantly searched for their equalising goal and it came from a contentious call from the referee to judge that Leo handled the ball in the box. UBS' skilful import from India coolly converted the spot kick to put UBS back at 3-3.

We then won 2 free-kicks from almost identical positions just after the mid-line and we had Simon to launch his trademark long balls directly at the keeper. The keeper nervously tipped the 1st one over for a corner, which UBS failed to clear convincingly from the resultant corner and Weng Khong pounced on the confusion among the UBS defenders caused by the conflicting calls for handball (from us) and offside (from them) and walked the ball into the unguarded net. 4-3. Simon's 2nd free-kick again put their keeper under great stress. With added pressure from Teck Chye, the keeper failed to deal with the free-kick, it came off the upright and Teck Wah knocked in the rebound from a tight angle. 5-3!

Teck Chye wasted 2 golden opportunities to add to the scoresheet and then Teck Wah couldn't set up a perfect tap-in for Yong Chua in a glorious breakaway that had 3 MS players zooming in against UBS' solitary defender. UBS came close to scoring on several occasions too but Brandon strong right-foot blocked 3 certain goals and on other occasions, our defensive quartets held the line well and admirably snuffed out their attacks.

A gritty 5-3 win. A great one, perhaps.