Two weeks ago we managed to get a draw with SJAA, the defending champions who defeated us 4-1 in the last season. This time we are facing our old enemy, MCOBA who humiliated us with a 5-1 drubbing in the last meeting. So revenge is definitely on the card. With the new black jerseys sponsored by one of our players, Rizal, we definitely look intimidating. However, right from the first minute we were completely overwhelmed by the slick passing and relentless pressure by the opponent. So much so that we had to make one tactical and one injury substitutions before the first half ends.
The same thing happened in the second half where our chances are quite rare. However I sense something is about to turn into our favour when one of their defenders was unable to take part any longer in the game due to a hamstring injury. And they have no other substitute! We introduced fresh legs and started to spend more time in their half. MCOBA started to slow down their tempo and began to make mistakes. We kept on pressuring and finally Jose managed to score his first goal of the season by capitalising on the keeper's mistake. I calculated that there was only less than 7 minutes left to play and the opponent sensed this too. So they became more aggressive and the shots were flying from various directions towards our goal. Suddenly I saw another MCOBA player entering the field to replace the injured one. Apparently he has just arrived and when I look at the watch it's already 7 o'clock. We were defending like mad but the lady luck is definitely not wearing black on that day. With few minutes remaining one of the MCOBA players hit a deflective shot which our keeper has only managed to palm away at the last minute but not enough to steer it away from the goal post.
In the end the match ended 1-1. Naturally the players were quite disappointed. Twice already we have been denied victory by the last minute equaliser. But to look in a positive way, last season we lost our first five matches but this time we already collected two points. Next week we will be facing SMACH who beaten us 3-1 in the last season. I can sense our first victory already.
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