Match report for Summer Palace vs Barbarians B, Sunday 9th September 2012, Chaoyang Stadium
As quite a few guys came late (as usual) and the ones who had played for City just before our game needed a rest our starting 11 was probably not the strongest and we fell behind after 10-15 minutes. Fortunately the guys who came from the bench at that point quickly changed the game and we started to pile pressure on their goal. Jason Kaye scored a great goal (volley below the bar from outside the box after a long ping-pong style exchange between their defence and our strikers…) to make it 1-1. Neat passing on the right wing led to Mike Zheng to double our score, 2-1 at half time, but it should have been more in our favour.
In the 2nd half, the Barbs’ keeper continued to make a lot of good saves to keep them in the game and then the ref gave an extremely soft penalty against Blythe for handball (he jumped to clear a corner with his arm across his chest the ball struck his arm having deflected, with no Barbs player within a 10-m radius…). They converted the penalty to level the score at 2-2.
Fortunately there was still plenty of playing time left, and we went on the attack again and created numerous chances. Captain Ben missed a sitter only for the ball to be partially cleared to the edge of the box and Elliot smashed it into the ‘upper 90’. Elliot then added another 10 mins later. Final score 4-2 for Palace. We could have added more, Benny Wu being guilty of missing a sitter as well.
All in all, it was a very good start of the league season: we created far more and better chances than them as well as having more possession, scoring 4 top quality goals, and got great support from the City guys who had stayed to watch our game.
In Luga’s after the game, Jason Kaye got MOM for an excellent defensive performance topped off by a bullet of a half-volley into the top corner to make it 1-1 and Benny Wu got Donkey for generally for not scoring. The best shots he took that day were of Luga’s tequila…
Cheers,
Ben R. (with editing from Patrick)
2010/11 Premiership & First Division League Winners.
“creating an atmosphere of fun and friendship for footballers from all corners of the world in the spirit of competition that all players, past, present and future, can enjoy”
