Don’t know how many times i've played on this pitch this season but not one of them has been a nice experience. It’s basically unplayable if the tiniest rain fall happens. And with the weather we have been having in the last year I think its pointless having this pitch on the list. You just can’t play on it! The right side by the tree line is a joke! And the middle of the pitch is a swimming pool. This just promotes hoof ball tactics. Something that we really aren’t good at or playing against.
Or the umpteenth time year we struggled to get 11 together and nearly had to give away a walkover for the second week in a row. The fixture list one week says we have no game planned then all of a sudden we do. in the meantime half of our team has decided to go on holiday and by the time we know about it no one is in Singapore! so many rescheduled games this year to rain had made it a nightmare and its slowly becoming a farce....we started off with pricey in goal and had to use three defenders as that’s all we had...which meant that only 1 player started the game that had started in that position at the beginning of the season. Not a good start already but we all seemed to know what we were doing we just had to do it now. The tactics worked well reducing the Germans to long shoots and long balls. No football was being able to be played through the centre and right side and both teams couldn’t get into a rhythm. When we did get forward we nearly scored from every attack. only a puddle on the line twice stopped us taking the lead with olive "the cursed one" magu twice beating the defence and the keeper only for the ball to somehow stop in the water before crossing the line. Danni had a shot well saved and shuntaro really should have scored the rebound but somehow missed from 2 yards. All a matter of time you might think. No! A fierce long range effort from the German striker moved massively in the air and all pricey could do was get his body behind it. The rebound was again struck with venom this time producing a great reaction save with his foot. the ball looked to be going out for a goal kick from the save when ,yep you guessed it , it stopped 2 yards from the line and a German player ran in and scored. tbh bad defending and latinis defence should have not though the keeper was gonna let it in! lol all awake now and some more great stuff from latini.. 4 of the best 20 yard passes saw radek round the keeper who had committed himself to coming out of his area. Radek crossed to the back post where dani was rushing in to volley home from 5 yards. one of the best team goals of the season and surely it was only a matter of time before latini walked away with this one! unfortunately it wasn’t to be.
after halftime latini never really got back into the game. with our 2 subs (I wish they were actually subs would have helped in all the water!) never getting into the game and the German u boats running our back line ragged we started to look shaky and very very tired. To be fair all the guys who have recently joined us aren’t fit enough yet for the pace of the cosmoleague and with no one to replace them .....well ..a sloppy free kick given away and no one was listening to the keeper. the German player lobbed it to the back post and he could only fingertip it on to the post and in.....pricey was almost playing as a sweeper by now, 3 times having to rush out to stop their strikers after they easily beat our back 3 with long balls over the top. a couple of late chances for latini went begging before the final nail in the coffin after a 1-1 wasn’t (finally) stopped by pricey....
good game of football and some really good refereeing made this an all round fun day. thanks to the Germans for a very fair and good game