Guys’ Soccer Finals
KE vs KR - 4 : 0

Even before the match started, massive dark clouds loomed in the sky, obscuring the four o’clock sun and threatening to unleash a fierce torrent of rain to thwart the commencement of the match. What the clouds unleashed, however, was not a thunderstorm but a rain of blessing, a brief shower that cooled the scorching afternoon air, which ended just in time for the grass to dry up sufficiently. Thus the stage was set, for both supporters and players alike, for a showdown of epic proportions.

Team KE was up against team KR, whom they drew 1-1 with during the group stages, and supposedly beat during one of the friendlies. H had confided to me before the match that both teams were quite well-acquainted with each other. For example, KR had apparently assigned two defenders to aggressively man-mark H during their first official clash, effectively clamping him down, preventing him from doing very much during that game, which explained the 1-1 score line. Likewise, our defense knew most of their offensive strategies and would be able to employ suitable counter-measures. Thus, it was going to be a tight tactical battle.

The game started in high gear, with KE mounting wave after wave of attack energetically against the KR defense. The defenders would supply long balls consistently forward for our strikers, who would deflect it reliably to the wingers. Then, as they tried to run down the flank with the ball, the midfielders and defenders would push forward to pressure the defense as well as pick up deflected balls. With sufficient back up at hand, crosses would then be attempted as our strikers lurked in the penalty box.

This appeared to be what team KE was generally doing during the first few minutes of the game. And boy did they pull off this strategy with such ferocity, precision and concentration. They seldom lost possession of the ball, passing accurately and tackling adroitly. You could see the high levels of discipline and commitment every single player had for this game. And eight minutes into the game, team KE was rewarded for their efforts.

In one of his run-ins from the left, our team captain Kevin was brought down just inside the penalty box. A whistle was blown - Kevin was fouled! A penalty kick was awarded! Hansley stepped up for the penalty kick, and, probably in his eagerness, went ahead to shoot before the referee was ready. It went in, but didn’t count. This anti-climatic event sent the crowd of supporters into mixed cries of anxiety, and would have thrown a player of lesser calibre into a disarray of nerves, causing him to lose focus and ultimately miss the crucial penalty. Not so for Hansley, who coolly took it again, and landed the ball in the top left hand corner of the net, albeit, this time, with the keeper managing to get a hand on it.

Our large contingent of KE supporters, who turned up in red and thronged the sidelines of the field, broke into a euphoric bout of cheers and applause, hardly able to believe that team KE was actually leading in the finals of this game (which they had crashed out most embarrassingly without a single win, only a year ago). If our players felt the same, they did not show it. After a somewhat reserved celebration on the field, they quickly jogged back to their positions. The game had just begun, and they were not going to allow themselves to get complacent so quickly.

The early goal served to jolt team KR into action after their sluggish start. They begun to pick up their pace, gained possession of the ball, and attacked aggressively. However, with our tenacious defenders Kevin and Terence stubbornly following their wingers, they were unable to advance very far nor make many satisfactory crosses, often losing the ball to our defenders once tackled. Any long balls or crosses that made their way in would subsequently be headed clear by Stefan, another towering player in our team.

The closest KR came to scoring a goal was when a long ball came close enough for Nicolas, our keeper to catch. However, he collided with on-rushing striker as he jumped to take the ball, who hit him in the nose, causing him to fumble and drop the ball into the path of another KR striker. He reached the ball, tapped it lightly towards the goal mouth, but it narrowly missed, hitting the sidebar and deflected out, to the great relief of all who were wearing red. Meanwhile, the best efforts of KE culminated in a near miss by our badly-marked star striker H, 26 minutes into the game. The KR keeper fumbled a Hansley cross, dropping it at the feet of H, who ballooned it over the crossbar.

The second half of the game saw a continuation of that relentless attack and solid defending by KE. Nicolas’ high-powered killer drop kicks began to cause some disarray in the KR penalty box. And, at 20 minutes, a high ball landed in KR’s penalty area, resulting in a goal-mouth scramble. H had taken possession of the high ball and fired it at point blank range. It was deflected by the keeper and cleared weakly by a defender into Remus’ feet. Remus took a little too long to shoot, allowing a defender to rush by just in time to deflect it into the air. Unfortunately for KR, it landed back into the penalty area, and this time, Husong was there, unmarked. He scored, and this time, both players and supporters celebrated ecstatically without restraint.

Barely five minutes later, KR, by now visibly shaken, lost the ball on defense to one of the midfielders in a lapse of focus. H, who received the pass, finally pulled off another one of his trademark runs down the left flank with the ball. Once again, shrugging off three defenders, he let loose a mighty strike past the keeper and into the net. With 6 goals to his name, H had scored at least once in every single game!

By now, KR’s players appeared visibly drained and tired. Their play started to become sloppy and lacklustre. Raymond, our star player for squash, had been playing like he was possessed ever since the start of the second half. He would chase lost causes with wild abandon and tackle defenders in their own half at every opportunity, resulting in Nicolas yelling at him once in one of his more overzealous tackles. Many of the supporters became coach for the moment and recommended vehemently that he be taken off the pitch lest he injured himself in the game, which seemed likely to happen any moment, given the way he was playing.

Injury did not befall him. Rather, his efforts paid off. At 35 minutes, a free kick was given, and taken by Kevin. It was punched away into the midfield by the keeper to a defender. Raymond was immediately after the defender, clinging onto him until he wrested the ball away. Turning past another defender, he shot and scored, making it 4 for the match, and a grand total of 14 for the whole tournament!

Subsequently, KE did not manage to score any more goals against KR. Not long before the whistle was blown, a bad collision happened in which Terence chipped his tooth against an unfortunate KR defender’s head. Terence was left with a bloody mouth and concussed with short-term memory loss (he was still feeling the effects the day after), while the KR defender left the pitch bandaged, with a deep gash on his forehead.

Soon the final whistle was blown, and KE erupted into an elated celebration. The players, unaccustomed to the taste of winning, seemed to be doing everything they could think of to celebrate this victory. They ‘wooshed’, then huddled together and jumped with joy, broke out into singing and dancing, then tried a coarse rendition of ‘we are the champions’, before lining up in a row to bow towards the supporters. After a round of photo-taking with Jenson (our GH Resident Fellow, who had been a chief source of cheering among the supporters through the match), they continued to come up with even more antics to celebrate this hard-fought gold medal.

…

Throughout the match, this reporter felt that the KR supporters had been top class in their unwavering support of their team. Hats off to them for not giving up on their players, and cheering them on even to the closing minutes of this one-sided game. Even in defeat, they did their customary end-of-match ‘human tunnel’ for their players to pass through, as a manifestation of that strong team spirit present in all of KR.

Good players come and go, and this couldn’t be more vividly demonstrated by the sad way RH, last year’s champions, crashed out in the groups stage. What would hold a team together, to win overwhelmingly in good times, and to lose respectably in bad times, is a strong KE spirit. We have much to learn from KR in that sense.

Nevertheless, nothing can take away the glory that our soccer team deserved for winning the soccer gold. Our players trained hard, played hard, and the evening was theirs indeed. The historic 3 golds that we’ve won for this year’s IHG is a strong beginning. It could fizzle out next year, and everyone would wave their fingers and declare that our strong showing this year was just a fluke. We know better, for surely all of us have been putting in our hearts and soul into our various sports and activities for KE this year.

Let us make the choice to build a strong KE spirit and support for each other, that it may see us through good times and bad. One day we may be serious contenders for champions in not just three sports. Let us not be limited in our thinking - but let us BELIEVE that our strong showing can be extended to other sports as well! And while improving in the area of sports, let us not forget the other areas which have traditionally been our strengths, or in which we have also been proving our worth, like Rag and Flag and the hall productions and culture performances. Let us seek excellence in all that we do. Because we can do it.

KE ke-ma-ma!

- Zichun