Wednesday, July 31, 2013

HK Giants/Ho Kwok Pui Zhen

This Tuesday 30th night, the GIANTS were down to the pitch in Choi Hung to play against Ho Kwok Pui Zhen, important game that would decide of our ranking in first division. With 13 players on the list and a good line up, we were quite confident and ready to win. During the first part of the season, we played them and won by 6 goals so we thought we could do it again.

After a good warm up and a few shots on the keepers, we started in defense, motivated. Unfortunately, motivation was not enough and we clearly lacked of focus. The defense was horrible, letting the opponents do whatever they wanted, running and going through easily. And even when our keepers stopped the ball, we let them get it back to score.
The attack was not even better, with many miss shots and many issues to find some open positions. After 12 minutes, they were already leading 6-1 and it was time to take a time-out to try to get us focus on the game.

It didn’t change anything and it was still too easy for them to score and go through, despite changing our defense to a 6-0. A few strange refereeing decisions later with some 2 minutes penalty, we were still 5 goals behind, trying to not make it worst.

We reached the half time on the score of 10-5, quite gutted that we couldn’t score more than 5 goals in 30 minutes. After a motivational speech, we started the second half same as we ended the first one, still believing that we could make it!

And even with all the motivation, we kept giving them easy shots and missing too many in attacks. Fortunately, we scored a bit more than the first half and after 9 minutes, scored 5 goals more, when they scored 4. It was then the time for the referees to get lost. With a series of 2 minutes for us, we played almost 10 minutes at 5 and even 4 players on the pitch for 1 minute. They also liked to stop the game for 2 minutes, to discuss about things, not being able to make a simple decision, which lead everyone to space out a little bit.

At 22 minutes in the 2nd half, we were still 5 goals behind and didn’t score for 7 minutes. A last time-out took and we decided to start playing. Showing what’s makes the GIANTS a first division team, with a fantastic team spirit, we played an unbelievable defense, with the opponents unable to find any shoots. And with some amazing attacks play, we were back on them in the last 30 seconds of the game. But as it was not stressful enough, the referees whistled a strange fault on the wing, and it was the full time, with a penalty shoot to go for Ho Kwok Pui Zhen.

Pressure was at its climax, and on a wonderful move, Wan stopped the shoot, getting a very important draw!
After a quick celebration, a powerful MUSCHI NAS, and a good speech, we were happy to be safe and have secured our seat in first division for the next season.

Highlights of the game, special attention to our 2 keepers Wan and Tim, who stopped the right ball at the right time. Score could have been much worse without them. No best scorer, but a very nice shoots, that we would like to see more often and from everyone, from Paul and Gaspard, a great team spirit, even in the worst times.

One more game to go, then we can say goodbye to 2012-2013 season and start focusing on 2013-2014 ones, with many news things coming!


Stay tuned!

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The HK Giants Team

The HK Giants Team