Character

Date: 19thAug 07


Time : 0915hrs


Venue: Tanglin Sec













Squad:
Zhanwei - GK
Kok - LB
Zhanyao - RB
Meng - CB
Junwei - CB
Andy - DM
Ian - ML
Weixiang - AM
Vincent - SC
Poh - Late




As Claudio Raneiri used to say "I liked the way we played today, we played with alot of character".

Well, we certainly had alot of it in today's game. I'm sure even Raneiri would have been proud of us.

At the beginning of the game, we would have gladly settled for a 3-3 draw if offered. At the end of the game, we went out proud of the eventual scoreline and the way we played. I can safely say that we have never really played better than today, never ever played with the kind of discipline that is comparable with Chelski.





This was how it went.....





It was a bright and sunny sunday morning.
We started off the morning with only 12 players scheduled to turn up.
1st to arrive was Weixiang at 8.30am
As he was early, he earned himself a berth in the starting lineup.


Or so he thought. In the end, he realised tt his starting berth was actually guaranteed cos we only had 9 players.
As it turned out, Hubert called Vincent and complained of a fever.
GY no.1
Next, Vincent called Weihao only to find out that he had told Hubert that he was not coming.
GY no.2
Last on the GY list was Poh.
As it turned out, he was still in bed at 9.15
But he did turn up towards the end of the 1st half so we should only take him as a half-GY then.


On top of that, Zhanyao started to develop some kind of alcohol addiction by drinking till 6am.
Meng was injured in his right foot.
Andy was having his 1st game since his ACL injury 8 months back.
Kok had a stubbed toe and a strained thigh.
Vincent had a knock in his heel which was giving him problems.


Things did not look any better when we saw that our opponents had 1/2 a team of malays. We looked like we were in for a thrashing.

So as it turns out, we started the game with 9 men, against our opponents with 10.
Only 1 man short, yeah right.
Their re-inforcements came in no longer than 10 mins.
So the game went on with 9 vs 11.
But we showed that we still managed to play well with 2 men less.

It was then to everyone's surprise when we drew 1st blood.
A few pinpoint long passes over the top had already signalled our intention early on. Weixiang have already had a good chance saved by the GK when bearing down on goal.


Then a long ball to the left had Vincent running after it.
As he cut back in and released a shot, the ball was blocked and it fell to Zhanyao. As Zhanyao tried to shoot again, the ball was flicked up and it hit a defender's arm. The referee blew for a penalty and Junwei duly dispatched it. 1-0 to the GYs!!!



Not long after, our opponents managed to pull one back, taking opportunity of some confusion in our penalty box.
Their tall malay striker with a weird hairstyle that looked to have come out from the 80s scored from within the penalty box. 1-1

But we refused to give it up and pressed on, but still defended cautiously.
Precise through-passes from Junwei and Vincent were giving up numerous opportunities to get the lead back. One such opportunity fell to Weixiang and he shrugged off the attention of a defender before putting the ball past the GK. 2-1 to GYs!!!



There was also a moment of worry for the GYs as an opponent looked to have broken the offside trap and was through on goal. The GYs had Kok to thank for running after the striker and using all dirty tricks to pull him back in order for the defence to recover. It was a close one as the referee might have considered sending Kok off he had made a tackle on him. The GYs would have been really down to 10 men then.

Half-time.

We were very reluctant to go out onto the field at HT and even contemplated running off with the score at 2-1. But we eventually did not as we decided that we were too tired to actually do so. Walking around on the pitch still seemed like a less tiring option.



As the 2nd half got underway, we begun the way we did in the 1st half. We had good possession of the ball and were rarely threatened by the opponents. But a long way up from their defence caught us out on one occasion. As luck conspired against us, Meng had a slip and the striker went past him. Junwei too had a slip so the striker was breeezing through our defence. Meng & Zhanyao tried to recover to stop him but it was too late. He had unleashed a shot that managed to take a wicked bounce and squirm under the body of Zhanwei. 2-2

Not long after, it soon became 3-2 for the opponents.
It was all against the run of play as a long ball was punted upfield by the opponents again. Their striker was offside but the referee decided to turn a blind eye to it and allowed him to run off and score against us. We tried our very best to argue but it was to not avail as the referee was also a Malay.

There was still time for Poh to miss a free header right in front of goal from a Zhanyao cross from the right. Luck was not with us as the ball would have dropped to Kok in front of an open goal if Poh had manged to flick the ball back or missed it completely. In the end, he decided to head the ball out of play. Kok rued the missed opportunity to score his 1st goal for GYFC.



It was thought that all was lost but with just the last kick of the game, Zhanyao took a ball from a corner from Vincent, shrugged off a defender and unleashed a powerful shot with his right foot and it went right into the top corner. It was later argued that the ball had rolled from the outside of his foot to the inside and back out again, thus resulting in the wonder strike. 3-3!!!

Man of the match was given to Zhanyao for his great play down the whole of the right wing and for his brilliant equalizer.

As a sub topic, at full-time, a comment was made saying that we played better when we had only 9 than when Poh came into the fray. Poh defended himself by arguing that we could have all collapsed on the field if we had played the whole game with 9.