Touch Ministry (1st Sept 2007)

Opponents: Touch Ministry
Venue: Jurong Junior College

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Final Score 4 : 3
Scorers: Liang Han(x02), Anis (x01), OG(x01)
Man Of Match: Liang Han

Match report by Ken Wong

Starting line-up
GK: Dennis
Def (L - R): Tony, Rosk, Vincent, Ken
Mid (L-R): Osman, Elango, Mark Teo, Anis
Att: Liang Han
(We started with only 10 players because some players don't know how to manage their time, choosing to go to the Comex, or "choosing" to fall sick with flu (AGAIN) on match day and leaving the team in jeopardy.)

In this game, we witness the making of a new record... The record of conceding the fastest goal in the whole of Outdoorspecialist history.

Even before the game started, Dennis was boasting about his previous Man of the Match, and talking about getting it again today.
He did make the headlines for today however, but for all the wrong reasons.

Kick off by opponents, a short pass to their left midfielder, and after 2touches, brought the ball forward just beyond the halfway line, looked up, attempted an audacious shot at goal.
This shot should be a piece of cake for ALL keepers, even Elangesh for that matter, but Dennis choose to do a super slow motion half-hearted attempt to try to catch the ball.
His attempt, should I put it as comical? He missed the ball completely, and he doesn't seem to know where his goal post was, and he was beaten at the near post, at merely 6SECONDS into the game!!!
To which he claimed that he thought the ball was going out...
(Come on Dennis, give us a better excuse.)

With only 10players, and going down 1-0 at such EARLY(I must keep on emphasizing how early we conceded this goal) stages, chasing back was a very difficult thing to do.
Most of the time, we were trying to cover the extra gap due to the missing player, and chasing shadows.
Our efforts soon paid off, with Vincent winning the ball from midfield and making a pass to Osman, who after beating 1player, played the ball to Liang Han.
Liang Han attempted a cross into the box, Touch Ministry last man tried to clear the ball, but could only end up deflecting the ball, beating his own goalkeeper, into his own net.

1-1, morales were rising.
A few glances to our bench, hoping our last player had reached, but all we could see were our 2veterans-star-players, Mr Sng and Kieran (both out with injuries, but at least they make a point to come down and watch... we should encourage more of this. This is a very big hint to the player down with flu.)
Outdoorspecialist continued to press harder, chasing for every ball.

Our second goal soon came.
A free kick from within our own half, from Vincent, found Anis on the right who beat this marker on the blind side, rounding the keeper, and tapping the ball into the net to give us the lead.

Another brillant move, yet another pass from Liang Han, released Osman on the run, who beat the defenders, took a shot at goal, beat the keeper, but not the cruel post.

We got hungry, like a shark that smelled blood, and wanted to go for the killer.
A clearance from deep inside our half, left Elango running and challenging for the ball with the keeper.
The keeper came off his goaline, miskick the ball and the ball fell right in front of who else but our current top scorer, who just returned from Vietnam at 4pm!!!, Liang Han and he had the simpliest of task by putting the ball into an empty net.

At 3-1 up, our pace didn't seem to slow down much still.
A cross from Osman from the left found Liang Han right in front of the 6yards box, but his attempt flew high and wide.

By now, it is about half time, and we finally see the 11th player running in.

2nd half, we had Aidil moving into central midfield, allowing Elango to push up to support Liang Han.

Touch Ministry came back into the game with a mission, changing to what seem like a 3-5-2 formation, with their left midfield constantly troubling our right back and right midfield.

And perhaps, it was too boring for Dennis at this moment, so he did a Fabian Barthez, doing silly stuffs. A harmless cross was sent into the far post, and Dennis had all the time to gather and catch the ball, but he chose to palm the ball out for a corner.
Thankfully this corner was subsequently cleared off.

On the other side of the pitch, Outdoorspecialist won a corner after Anis fierce shot at goal.
Ken Wong stepped up to take the corner from the right, finding Anis at the near post, but his header was cannonned off the crossbar, denying him his second goal of the evening.

There seem to be non-stop action today, and the opponents got their second goal from a corner, which saw their player losing his marker and heading pass Dennis.

With the score at 3-2, and still plenty of time to go, anything could happen.
A lob over our defence released the opponent on his run, and our own back line was expecting Dennis to come off his line to clear the ball, but Dennis hesitated and as a result, he was beaten for the 3rd time this evening.

Both teams are now desperate, hoping to find the winner.
Into the last few mins of the game, with Outdoorspecialist down to 10men yet again, due to Tony's injury, Osman was doing a Nani type of stepovers, and during his awesome display of skills, Elango and Anis both did dummies run, stretching the opponents defence.
And this gave Osman a chance to play the killer pass to Liang Han, who turned his marker like as if he was Dennis (Berkamp) or Mr Sng for that matter, before side-footing and placing the ball into the far post for the winner.

This was a hard fought victory, especially so because we made it difficult for ourselves. - Osman (after FT)

He was also very disappointed with Gary for twisting the facts.
After confirmation, Liang Han made no such comments on Osman scoring. (please refer to previous entry)

Moving into disciplinary matters, Aidil is being fined for turning up super late for today's match. Treasurer please take note to collect the fine.
As for players who are sick on match days, the team has decided that a Medical Cert has to be produced.

Next week game is confirmed.
Please turned up by 445pm and get ready for warm-up.

As this is my 1st time writing a match report, sorry for the lengthy entry.
For members who have read this, kindly leave a comment so I know where I can improve on in future.
Give this young man some encouragement ok?

Yours Sincerely,
Ken Wong