The scorching heat from previous outings never seemed to let up as PMC and CMC gathered for a friendly at St Patrick’s School before their respective campaign starts at the Agape Cup in a few weeks. CMC easily had 20 players ready to go at kick-off time while the PMC team had barely their starting 11. Thank God Yuen Wai and John Chia streamed in so that PMC could have a full team at the start. With a number of regulars missing, Justin helped to organize a somewhat make-shift 4-5-1 team for kick-off. Regular Kelvin was in goal with the back four of Mark Leong, David Teong, John and Yuen Wai. Dave and John Chia took the wings while Justin, David Sng and Steve held the midfield together with Ramon up front.
PMC was on the back foot right from the kick-off with CMC’s speed and teamwork clearly causing big problems. Within the first 15 minutes, CMC got their first goal through one of those moves that found its way right pass our defense for the CMC striker to slot home. CMC 1 – PMC 0.
With Michael Chua, Daniel, Parris and Felix arriving, PMC started to substitute some of the more weary legs and in particular, Daniel provided fresh impetus by taking over David Sng in the holding midfield role. PMC quickly stringed together a few decent plays with one finally reaching the back of the net. The move started with Justin breaking the run of play with a tackle in midfield and passing the ball to Steve who made a through pass down the flank to Dave, whose stiff cross into the box was guided into goal by Ramon. CMC 1 – PMC 1.
The score remained the same at half-time and while CMC brought on many more fresh legs at the half, the obviously more senior PMC team looked more worn out throughout the 2nd half. However, the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half did see PMC heap significant pressure on the CMC defense though none quite found the mark. Quickly, CMC turned the tables and it seemed that every failed PMC attack almost led to a goal being conceded on the opposite end. One such counter-attack led to CMC’s 2nd goal with a lob totally beating PMC’s offside trap and the CMC striker easily stroked the ball pass Michael Chua. Not long after, another long ball from CMC was slightly misjudged by Mike who allowed the pursuing CMC striker to steal the ball and roll it into the empty net. Kudos to John who tried his best to keep it out only to tumble into the goal with the ball.
Both sides tried to improve their score towards the end but to no avail and final score, CMC 3 – PMC 1.
Clearly, some of the key feedback from the players was:
- Lack of key regular players, especially in central midfield
- Silly mistakes cost the team the advantage
- Not enough passing
- Lack of fitness prevented the team from moving up and down as a unit
- Lack of awareness of positioning and where team mates were
Reported by : Justin Ang & Mark Leong
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