It’s Raining Goals.
Written By Edmund Tan.
Morning greeted us with rain after days of scorching heat. I love the rain, but it was not welcomed today. Kickoff was in an hour.
We boarded the bus all excited. I distributed jerseys and asked if everyone had a good sleep. 8-9pm was the majority response. Good.
30 minutes later, we arrived at Alice Smith School. We setup under a tent and prepared ourselves. Simon Grimshaw, organizer of the event, briefed us on the rules and answered questions.
Our first match was against our hosts, Alice Smith 1. I gathered my 7 players in a circle and said, “We have prepared all we can in the last 2 weeks, there’s nothing more that we can do but to give our best effort”. “Don’t allow our opponents to score. Keep focused. Enjoy yourselves”
The first 5 minutes of the game, we managed to hold our opponents but we were not pressuring them on their half. A cross came in from a run down the flank. Goal! We were down 0-1. Another goal followed. The whistle rang. 0-2: Defeat.
I tried to calm my players down from their loss. “Let’s concentrate on the next game”. International School of Kuala Lumpur was our next match. 3 players were substituted and I hoped for a better result. The floodgates opened; we went down 0-3. Ring. I walked towards my players who were downcast and demoralized. I ordered them back to the tent and to forget about what just happened.
Brendan came up to me and said, “Coach, I want to be keeper”. He had requested weeks before not to play keeper. I guess he was frustrated and wanted to do something about it. I admired his initiative. “Put on the gloves and jersey” I answered.
Mont Kiara was up next. We gathered again on the field. I asked my players jokingly, “The first game, we lost 0-2, the second, 0-3; how about our third?” Brendan cheekily replied “0-4”. We all laughed. I said, “Let’s try to change the score this match. We conceded again: 0-2.
Our 4th match was with the Australian school. The boys came through with a narrow win. An inch perfect cross from Kevin Wenzel and a one touch volley from Marvin Rössger gave us our first win. The team was elated. We celebrated like champions of the tournament.
We were humbled 0-3 in our final group match by Garden International School. They were superior to us physically, technically and tactically. They played like a well-oiled machine. Timed runs, accurate passes and on target shots from outside the penalty box were our reckoning.
I went to the scoreboard to check our standings: 5th place out of 6 teams. We were to play our last match to determine our overall position out of 12 teams.
Mont Kiara 2 was our last opponents of the day. I gave the players a final incentive to do well: “Score or assist a goal and you get to keep the jersey”.
Guess what? We won the match 3-1. We came in 9th place out of 12 teams.
“It’s an improvement”, mentioned a father of one of our players. I said, “Yes, considering we came in 2nd last in our previous tournament”. I promised we would do better the next time.
Player of the team throughout the competition was Doguhan Fidan. He showed class, maturity and talent. The future looks bright for him. As for the rest, we still have work to do. We are looking forward to our next training session.
Our experience at the competition taught us 2 lessons:
1) We still have to improve in areas like tactics, communication & composure.
2) Tangible and immediate rewards are practical incentives for performance.
Here are some of the pictures from the tournament , ENJOY !=)
A picture of them getting all excited before the big tournament !
Coach Edmund preparing his tactics before the next game,while the players and parents wait for Edmund to choose the next line up.POSSER PIC LA !
Coach Edmund having a team talk before our match.Almost looks like their praying.Lol
Coach Edmund with the two subs.
A group picture after out first win in the tournament !:)
The boys celebrating their first victroy of the day.
A group picture after our last match , which we won 3-1 ! 
Last picture of the day,me with the only two boys who followed the bus back to the school.I had to put a picture of myself la its my blog ok! LolI have to put this because the writter insist I put his name at the top and bottom of the POST!
This post was written by EDMUND TAN.
Hope you enjoyed it!
I promise I'll try to update more often!;)
