Manchester United NZ vs China (3)
A grey afternoon at Allan Wood Park in Mt Albert welcomed the Man Utd NZ soccer team to their third encounter with the China Star team.
Numbers were down, so everyone got to play a whole game and Marc was the referee (lack of boots, hangover, annoyed that he didn‘t play the week before and broke a 148 game streak !!!).
We lined us thus, Kens mate Mike in goal, Walter, Ron, Phil and a Star sub in d, Hayden, Steve Taylor, KJ, Alex in the middle and Mike Tull and Jan up front. As usually happens when there are no subs, people settle in to their roles much better and so it was again, in a tight first half, the play was evenly shared until a little ripper of a Star winger got free, raced 40 metres and slid the ball under Mike, quite a good goal really. So into halftime and the mood was good, the belief of a win strong, especially after last weeks comeback.
Well the Chinese quickly showed how talented they were as they launched a cavalcade of attacks, scoring 2 more goals and unlucky not to get a couple more, but the Reds saviour came from the most unlikely source, as Jan bundled his way thru the Star defence and smacked the ball into the net! Instantly the guys found more life and within minutes the ref gave a dodgy penalty which Steve confidently put away, woo hoo, 2-3, the next fifteen minutes were full on with the Star attack fading and the Red Machine switched right on and it was the always hard working Mike Tull who made the break and scored a cracking equaliser. Now the ref started considering time variables and such but succumbed to fair play and blew for full time.
This was the third match we have played these guys and I think we can see that we could easily have beaten them in the final of the Asian Cup, but every game has been clean and there has been some wonderful talent on show from both teams.
Numbers were down, so everyone got to play a whole game and Marc was the referee (lack of boots, hangover, annoyed that he didn‘t play the week before and broke a 148 game streak !!!).
We lined us thus, Kens mate Mike in goal, Walter, Ron, Phil and a Star sub in d, Hayden, Steve Taylor, KJ, Alex in the middle and Mike Tull and Jan up front. As usually happens when there are no subs, people settle in to their roles much better and so it was again, in a tight first half, the play was evenly shared until a little ripper of a Star winger got free, raced 40 metres and slid the ball under Mike, quite a good goal really. So into halftime and the mood was good, the belief of a win strong, especially after last weeks comeback.
Well the Chinese quickly showed how talented they were as they launched a cavalcade of attacks, scoring 2 more goals and unlucky not to get a couple more, but the Reds saviour came from the most unlikely source, as Jan bundled his way thru the Star defence and smacked the ball into the net! Instantly the guys found more life and within minutes the ref gave a dodgy penalty which Steve confidently put away, woo hoo, 2-3, the next fifteen minutes were full on with the Star attack fading and the Red Machine switched right on and it was the always hard working Mike Tull who made the break and scored a cracking equaliser. Now the ref started considering time variables and such but succumbed to fair play and blew for full time.
This was the third match we have played these guys and I think we can see that we could easily have beaten them in the final of the Asian Cup, but every game has been clean and there has been some wonderful talent on show from both teams.
posted by Swanson Red at 1:43 am
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