Let’s make a Steal..

With 2 draws against the 2 teams we have lost to, things were definitely looking gloomy for us. With the absence of Isaac, we lost some credibility in our backline. Shugan, after getting his hand checked up, is now definitely sidelined for another month. His swollen fingers as a result of Lavan’s shot was now made worse with Agni following suit last week.

From the moment the whistle blew, the Spartans showed no mercy towards us with constant berating on our defense. After 1 min, a lapse focus led to poor clearance of the ball, the Spartans opened their account with a low shot beating Min Jie. Our defense looked so shaky in the opening minute, I would imagine what would come at the end of 20mins. Gotta be consistent !

1-0 down.

So we are now trailing, not a good place to be in with Spartans still pushing, still hungry for more. Imagine dining in hell with Ice-cream, that was how luxurious they had it in the 1st half. Continuous flow of attacks, pounding 1 after another..

Le’Samba had Abz to thank for. Playing a more centralized role this season, he has opted to be more involved with the backline. Apparently the mallu has spent all his magic scoring imba goals last season, he hasn’t any left for now. I think he plans on sucking some of that aura from DnC’s mallu poacher!

Well yeah, Abz covered for the faulty backline. Magz and VK having an off-day it seems. Things had to change, fast !

Le’Samba had a break in the 5th minute with 2 continuous corner kicks, with the latter resulting us pulling back 1. Starting with Abz, he blueprinted a perfect setpiece between him and Lingesh before sending the ball home. The goalie deflected Abz’s shot only to find Samba’s hitman, Harin, already in air to head the ball into the wide open net. This was exactly what we wanted, the end of our dry spell.

The 1st half has now got even more interesting, with Satish coming up with crazy shots all over the midfield threatening MinJie in goal. Rama’s cheeky turnover opened up our defense but he had no support to finish. Spartans had at least 5 shots on the post, talk about bad luck.

The 2nd half was basically a replay of what we went through in the previous 10mins. We had zero passing chemistry, something we had displayed in our previous fixtures. We didn’t really see much of the ball that night. It was all Spartans for the taking! Kay looked promising at one point when Harin gave him an excellent pass but that Chinko-bekker had to aim for the crossbar !

And then came the Game-Breaker.

18th minute, a good intercept by Kay took the ball away from the Spartan’s backline. Abz received the pass and managed to wiggle past GK on the sideline, a beautiful display of passing between Abz & Kay saw VK open waiting in front of goal. He had no reason not to score. As the ball rolled into the back of the net, the atmosphere in the zal changed.

With 1 minute to go, we couldn’t screw this up. Then again, the proud Spartans not going down without a fight, picked themselves up and went full throttle on the attack. They even came really close when a poor clearance left the ball open for Rama to tap in, instead he sent the ball wide.

The final whistle blew, the game ended with Le’Samba emerging as the victors. This game was definitely a steal, it wasn’t our best performance and yet we stole the 3 points from them. Ladyluck must be shining down upon us ..

Got to keep our defensive line consistent, passes fluid and finally play properly.
Back on track, looking forward to more goals and wins now !

Labels: review