Reflections for match against Choa Chu Kang Secondary School (Lhu Wen Kai)

I rate my performance at a career low of 7.5/10, as I contributed to the two goals that was against us. Needless to say, I am going to explain my rating using the demerit point system. I minused one point because of the positioning in the first goal. Although this was not a communication error between me and Niklaus, as I clearly shouted ‘my ball’, I think I should have shouted ‘my ball’ but instead, stand on the line. Why? It is because when Niklaus let the ball bounce past him, the striker will naturally need the time and space to control the ball, before a shot. Also, the distance was quite far but not within a running distance. But however, I shouted ‘your ball’ when the ball was in the air and heading towards Niklaus, so I was not really sure of Niklaus was going to miss the ball or connect with the ball with a header. So when Niklaus indeed missed the header, I shouted ‘my ball’ which was a correct call, and started closing down the area of the striker. However, the striker lofted a shot to the upper right of me for an unstoppable shot. When I turned back and saw the ball, it was just slightly below my chest height, so I would have stand a good chance as if the striker was going to shoot like how he shot (which is probably what hes going to do), I should have saved it. I minus the other point and a half because although the striker misplaced a cross into a shot, far from my reach, I managed to jump and get a hand to it, but it proved it wasnt enough. So this is probably the reason why I did not minus 2 marks, but instead just 1.5 marks. The positioning of me was also wrong as I am suppose to stand towards the far post instead of clinging on to the near post, so when the shot comes in, I would have more distance to jump and save the ball instead of standing at the near post, where height and speed of the ball became my enemies.

I think in the game, Eugene needs to run after the ball after he lost the ball. At the left (goalkeeper’s view), Bryan committed himself to early, even though he knows that he cannot outrun the defender, so when he constantly commit that mistake, the defender outrun and outskilled him with a flick and a turn to put in a convincing cross, which fortunately, has no one at the end of it. Mitchel ran too far and up of his initial position, which means he has more distance to cover when the attacker charges though him in the center. The rest of the players are pretty much in their position, but the problem is that they are ‘overly-positioned’, meaning that they did not run for the ball but instead wait for the ball. When Jia Le and Bryan kicked the goalkick, the players were not shifting and were just WALKING and wandering around waiting for the ball to reach them. When the goalkick reaches the opponent, everybody waited for 3 seconds before reacting.

Man of the match, nobody. Everybody commited at least one major mistake in the game that causes the game to be altered in their direction in the second half, and although this is a loss for us, it was a GOOD loss to us. We each commited a mistake, and as they say, If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.