Busy Saturday...Friendly Football

On Saturday afternoon at 5.30PM, Malakoff hosted our department for a friendly football match at Permata Sports Complex in Bangi. This friendly match has become an annual affair for both teams as this year marked the forth of such game in our calender dated backed since 2004. I still remember we played and lost in our first game at Selayang Stadium in 2004. In 2005, we had the game at Stadium KKK in USJ and we lose by 3-2. Only last year did we manage to win for the first time. Initially, I was pretty convinced that the Malakoff team would want to have some sort of revenge in this year's game but to my surprise, this was just my far-fetched imagination as the game turned out to be even more 'friendlier'.



We were supposed to start the game at 5.30PM but due to the unavailability of several Malakof players the game has got to be started slightly later, and only after several players from our department switched side and played for Malakof to complete the team. In fact, the game was without two linesman as the designated referee was also 'forced' to play for Malakof as so many of the Malakof players were absent! I really hope that Malakoff plant availability factor is not very similar to the committment level of thier players..otherwise, the whole grid will be in trouble :-))





As for the game itself, it was a so-so game, to say the least. I did play for the full second period and all the actions on the field were actually captured in the first period when i was not playing.









Looking back, Although Malakof hosted the game, I felt a bit annoyed by the fact that they did not have a very serious commitment in playing to thier full strength. I know that our team has taken very seriuosly about this game and the non-presence of so many Malakoff players have only dented thier image so to speak, at least IMHO. The very least they could do was to ask for postponement of the game to other date since understandably, this week is actually the First Semester school break and many people would already gone for holidays. Admittedly, we also had several 'imported players' for our contingency plan but that only reflects on how serious and committed our team is on this annual game. Nonetheless, I would like to ask our team manager to make sure that if we do receive another invitation for a friendly match next year, let us make sure that we are not to play with a non-commital team as the lure of playing in a Stadium cannot replace the joy and spirit of playing the real team. As for the result of the match itself, please don't bother. I would not consider it a win of 4-1 to our team as we were at least in the first period, playing with each other rather that the actual Malakoff team. If anything that I can learn from this match is that I managed to test out the my photography skill on panning technique. Other that that, I am a very tired and my muscles are all aching !!!