Female Soccer Stars: “You’re HOT!”

Pubz Comm Reporter: Danbee Shin

Danbee is also the Captain of the KEVII girls Soccer team.

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This year’s KEVII soccer girls were told by their new captain to keep one thing in mind as they faced the fateful day of January 26th, 2008.

“Be aggressive!”

Oh, and aggressive they were; so much in fact that they drove off not only the condescending attitudes of the other halls but also – perhaps more importantly – the skeptical frowns of their own apprehensive supporters. Securing a well-deserved fifth place that they had aimed for, the girls witnessed, with pride, their opponents making half an attempt at concealing their surprise under raised eyebrows and a loyal bubble of red rippling in ecstatic surprise.

Kimberly set the ball rolling against the Sheares team under the 9.30 morning sun. Even after they scored the first goal, there was no sign of the Sheares girls’ abusive language about which I had been warned. That was a smart decision on their part, seeing as Jiahui, with a beautiful free kick through the wall, scored what the seniors tell me was the first goal by a KEVII female soccer player in four years. It was evident that a 1-all draw was definitely more than had been expected of the girls in red practically bouncing off the field.

With skyrocketing morale, our girls managed a 1-0 loss against Eusoff Hall, at least half of whose entire team consisted of IVP players, once again leaping way over the bar set for them. After a relaxed lunch break, filled nine dollars worth of bananas and enthusiastic chatter, their confidence continued to grow by the minute, and rightfully so! Unfortunately, they experienced a passing moment of bitter disappointment as the Temasek team slipped away with a 1-0 win against us, the rain-soaked ball barely making it through Gloria’s dive.

“I love your team’s spirit,” a Eusoffian said when she came to congratulate me for our girls’ outstanding performance. This is the very spirit that drove our girls to continue fighting under the tropical sun, even when they were down by 3-0 against team Kent Ridge, whom we had identified as our single biggest challenge. It was during this game that our less-experienced girls raised to the occasion, embodying pure determination and sportsmanship. The Pikwei-Laura-Esther trio even made the crowd hold its collective breath for a few moments when they came ever so close to stringing a fancy play into a goal!

After four matches and several yellow cards, the KEVII female soccer stars faced the moment they had all been waiting for; the first victory in years, or so I am told. With our best team on the field, there could be no debate over who dominated the game. The first half saw a textbook-perfect play; Kimberly booted a clear from the defense line which Amanda picked up, and her crisp pass up to Jiahui was shot into the back of the net so quickly there was a split second of disbelief before the red crowd went wild. Everyone was at a loss for words as the girls in red raced off the field to celebrate their 1-0 win, flashing smiles and creating more hoo-ha than their photographers or video crew could ever ask for.

These girls – the ones telling me, “I have never had so much fun playing soccer,” and “I’m just so happy!” – were the same girls who had told me I did not have to give them a pep-talk on the possibility of losing because they were so used to it. These were the girls playing the sport people in their own Hall had snorted at, the girls from whom no one had ever expected anything. As a newcomer, not only to coaching an entire team (comprising exclusively of girls older than myself) as captain but also to Singapore, NUS and KEVII Hall, it means a lot to be able to think to myself, ‘wow, I really am so proud of these girls and of what we’ve achieved as team.’ It means even more, perhaps, to realize that the fifteen of us have gone through so much over such a short period of time that we really are more than just a group of girls wearing the same soccer jerseys; we truly are a team – the KE VII Hall Female Soccer Team that just set the bar several notches higher.

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