Bangkok Storm Football Club

OUR FIRST MATCH 3/10/09

And on the 3rd day, of the 10th month in the year 2009, The Bangkokstorm played it's first game in the Bangkok Casuals League, and promptly got rolled over 2 - 4. Not quite the start we were looking for, but a start nevertheless.

We played poorly from the get go, mainly to half the team showing up late and we were completely disorganized. We went a goal down through June who brilliantly chipped the goal keeper. Unfortunately June wears an orange number 5 kit, which happens to be our home kit. Own goal, one down.

Amazingly, that goal got us regrouped. We started to play better and for the next five minutes, we controlled the midfield. And completely against the run of play, we were 2 down. A great through pass found an opponent free and clear to the left of our keeper area. A well placed shot into the far corner and the keeper who up to that point had nothing to do save for taking the ball out his net, found himself doing the exact same thing again. At least this time around the scorer wore a yellow jersey.

After that though, we started to play the way we know how to. We passed the ball around well, but our spacing was still bad and our movement was poor. Still more often than not, the yellow shirts were chasing the orange shirts.

And still, a yellow shirt found himself less than 10 yards from goal, ball at his feet with no orange shirts around. The keeper made a reaction save from point blank, the ball still fell to the yellow striker but amazingly he blazed the ball clean over the crossbars from about 5 yards out. A bullet dodged then. Being 3 goals down at that point would have been harsh.

Soon after we were one goal down. Pot came on at right back, Christian was moved to defensive midfield and just like that, the ball landed at Pot's feet after it bounced off a yellow shirt defender. Pot ran into the box with it and hit a well placed shot that found an opening in a sea of legs and ended in the back of the net untouched.

Halftime came too soon for us because the momentum was all ours.

The troops fully rallied, the belief all ours, and so excited were we, we almost played with 12 men to ensure our comeback. As Win trotted off the field, and the whistle blew, we picked up where we left off.

We controlled the game but had nothing to show for it. Save for a couple of wild shots from Christian, a misfire from Win, a few great runs by Tun and Jay, we created zero real chances. Too many of our crosses fell harmlessly. Wait, let me rephrase that, none of our crosses made any impact whatsoever. From the left, Cuno, Nut and Win combined for a couple of great moves but the final ball always went missing.

From our right, Jay, Pot, Wayne B did very well too. Again some nice interplay found us sending in great crosses, but again, it never ended with even an attempt on goal. I guess that's why we have training.

Our midfield was very strong. Abi led the charge supported by Vic, Sebastian, William and Tun. We all tried our best but we all played our individual game too much. We didn't combine well with our teammates and we never had a sustained passage of play where we kept the ball and moved it around. It's a testament to our players that we hardly gave the other a chance. However, it is also a testament to how we played that not too long after, they had their first shot at goal, and scored.

Again a yellow shirt broke through into our box untouched and unchallenged and scored with another well placed shot into the back corner.

That was a killer blow. After playing so well but not creating any chances, again completely against the run of play, we were 2 down.

Sebastian got injured in a rough tackle and will be out for possibly two weeks. Too many times we were busy yelling at the refs about how rough the other team was playing, too many times we were bitching about a supposed foul throw or injustice. It's football people, both teams are playing with the same ref in the same conditions. If we can ignore the ref, ignore the other team and concentrate on our own game, on our own team, we should be playing where it doesn't matter who we face or who's blowing the whistle.

And then we were 3 down. A soft free kick resulted in an extremely soft goal. I blame the keeper who isn't exactly six feet tall and should have known better than to be caught completely out of position. Unfortunately I'm the keeper so let me rewrite that.

The yellow shirts got a clear free kick on the left side of goal facing out. The kicker did a fantastic imitation of Ronaldo and curled a bullet into the top far post. The crowd jumped to it's feet and held it's breath as time slowed down and the keeper dove brilliantly and just missed the ball by mere mili-meters. A great goal that not even Peter Cech would have gotten to.

3 down but still we didn't give up and we were rewarded with a consolation goal keeping the score respectable at 2 - 4.

In truth we didn't deserve to win and fair play to Pickled Liver, they broke through first, albeit from our mistake and they kept us at bay. Even when they were being outplayed, they didn't allow us time on the ball nor did they give us a single clear chance.

We beat them in pre-season and maybe that was a false dawn. We're a new team, but we know we can play better and had we prepared properly prior to the game, we may have given a better account of ourselves then we did.

It's a long season. We have some really good new players that are still integrating with our team. Kenji and Vic will prepare us better for our next match. As long as we show up for training and commit ourselves better, we will improve.

Pot and Henri scored our two goals. Well done to them. The team didn't give up, well done to us. And Pickled Liver won a game they deserved to win, a hearty congratulations to our opponents who recovered well from their first week loss.

My man of the Match award goes to Pot who didn't put a foot wrong and scored our first goal. This is completely subjective, no voting procedure had been done of any kind, but since I'm the one writing this, I'm just going to go ahead and make the pick. Pot, you get a free beer after our next training. But if you don't show up for training, you forfeit the beer and I'm sure someone else will claim it for you instead.

Our first game done men, we lost, but every team will lose this season, the objective is to lose fewer times than the other teams.

My weather forecast says that for the next few months, there's a storm cloud gathering over the skies of Bangkok, whether the storm dissipates or unleashes hell, remains to be seen.

The BangkokStorm.