Scorers (assists)
Rafeeq (Akim)
Akim (GK)
Farid - Andrew - Azmi - Kevin
Omar - Rahman - Azman - Huang
Rafeeq - Khidir
Subs:
Yazier
Our team in D2D league
Rest of league results
It is a week to go before our 4th season in D2D league. Our pre-season preparations were hampered though when we found out our opponents were the top-flight division champions. A surprising poor attendance, in my opinion anyway, plus the absence of yet another GK, failed to dampen team spirit as we took to the pitch against our established opposition on the wonderful, if small, artificial Bedok Green Sec pitch.
Not surprisingly, Team BI dominated possession. A couple of tame shots in the opening minutes was a precursor of things to come. For about 30 minutes, we repelled the attacks with a brave defensive team display and my relatively safe handling in goal. That did not frustrate a patient team, who must have been in this position before.
Mental concentration, especially in defence, will be key to our league season (it seems we are promoted to Div 2) and our first real lapse led to the opening goal. Yet again, we gave the ball away in a crucial area right outside our penalty box. The defence was all at sea and I was finally beaten by a well-drilled low shot across goal at the far post.
They doubled their lead with a more impressive effort; a thunderbolt from long-range. The lead was tripled after a well-worked passage of play allowed the opponent time and space to cross the ball to an unmarked player who headed into a virtually empty net. 0-3 at half-time.
With the pressure of getting a result out of the way, we became more adventurous after the restart and the move paid dividends resulting in at least 4 clear-cut chances on goal, one of which resulted in our sole goal.
The opponents scored their 4th goal in the midst but Rafeeq's wonderful consolation goal drew huge roars of approval. It was the same combination from last week's goal after I played a through pass to Rafeeq. Lacking in pace, he made up for it with a speed of thought to catch the opponents off-guard and lobbed over the GK from long range. The opponents were still hungry to score two more goals to win convincingly.
We can take heart from our performance in a tough footballing lesson. We struggled to conjure up attacking moves of our own as our long punts were easily handled by their taller defensive backline while our inferior passing ability also showed. Yet, for the first 30 minutes or so, we showed heart and fight to hold the opponents to a 0-0 stalemate until that defensive lapse and managed to create some decent chances in attack especially from set-pieces.
With a surprising promotion on the cards, coupled with the frustrating multiple demotion of at least one team (echoing the pattern of another team that did so), we definitely need to show the same bite if we want to avoid relegation.
ps: still scouting around for a regular GK. Tks
Akim
Rest of league results
It is a week to go before our 4th season in D2D league. Our pre-season preparations were hampered though when we found out our opponents were the top-flight division champions. A surprising poor attendance, in my opinion anyway, plus the absence of yet another GK, failed to dampen team spirit as we took to the pitch against our established opposition on the wonderful, if small, artificial Bedok Green Sec pitch.
Not surprisingly, Team BI dominated possession. A couple of tame shots in the opening minutes was a precursor of things to come. For about 30 minutes, we repelled the attacks with a brave defensive team display and my relatively safe handling in goal. That did not frustrate a patient team, who must have been in this position before.
Mental concentration, especially in defence, will be key to our league season (it seems we are promoted to Div 2) and our first real lapse led to the opening goal. Yet again, we gave the ball away in a crucial area right outside our penalty box. The defence was all at sea and I was finally beaten by a well-drilled low shot across goal at the far post.
They doubled their lead with a more impressive effort; a thunderbolt from long-range. The lead was tripled after a well-worked passage of play allowed the opponent time and space to cross the ball to an unmarked player who headed into a virtually empty net. 0-3 at half-time.
With the pressure of getting a result out of the way, we became more adventurous after the restart and the move paid dividends resulting in at least 4 clear-cut chances on goal, one of which resulted in our sole goal.
The opponents scored their 4th goal in the midst but Rafeeq's wonderful consolation goal drew huge roars of approval. It was the same combination from last week's goal after I played a through pass to Rafeeq. Lacking in pace, he made up for it with a speed of thought to catch the opponents off-guard and lobbed over the GK from long range. The opponents were still hungry to score two more goals to win convincingly.
We can take heart from our performance in a tough footballing lesson. We struggled to conjure up attacking moves of our own as our long punts were easily handled by their taller defensive backline while our inferior passing ability also showed. Yet, for the first 30 minutes or so, we showed heart and fight to hold the opponents to a 0-0 stalemate until that defensive lapse and managed to create some decent chances in attack especially from set-pieces.
With a surprising promotion on the cards, coupled with the frustrating multiple demotion of at least one team (echoing the pattern of another team that did so), we definitely need to show the same bite if we want to avoid relegation.
ps: still scouting around for a regular GK. Tks
Akim