Football on Jiewawa's blog

2023/24 Premier League Predictions

Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I want to get back into the habit of posting on my blog, and I thought a simple post like this would be good in terms of getting me back on track. I didn’t spend too much time thinking it through and my opinions could change completely as the transfer window doesn’t close for another three weeks.

Manchester City
Arsenal
Liverpool
Chelsea
Manchester United
Aston Villa
Tottenham Hotspur
Newcastle United
West Ham United
Brighton and Hove Albion
Bournemouth
Brentford
Burnley
Everton
Crystal Palace
Fulham
Nottingham Forrest
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Luton Town
Sheffield United

November 2021

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday, November 21st 2021 - 1 goal

It was a cold Sunday evening. Perfect conditions for a game of football. Before the game started, I had 10 more goals to reach my goal of 50 goals.

The game started off with a very fast pace, and there were several strong challenges within the opening few minutes. However, despite all the players’ obvious enthusiasm, there was nothing to show for it on the scorecard.

A long ball was swept over the top to me in the centre forward position and I found myself battling with a player about 25cm shorter than me. I spotted that the ball was going to land between us and the goal, so I got goalside of my man and pinned him behind me.

The ball bounced just outside the D, and I was still holding off the oppostition defender. I let it roll once before releasing a tame effort into the back of the net. The defender then told me he could have won the ball, but it would have involved taking me out. Okay, mate.

Luckily for him, I ended up taking myself out of the game not long later. I was pressing a bit too enthusiastically and tried closing the goalkeeper down when there was really no need to. I lunged for the ball and he rolled it away from where I was heading. I tried to readjust, but ultimately ended up twisting my ankle and effectively ending my 2021 campaign prematurely.

October 2021

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday, October 10th 2021 - 2 goals

Frequent readers of this blog may be under the impression that I like to wait until the opposition get tired late in the game before striking on the counter. This game started off very differently. I started the game off quickly and proactively.

From within my own half, I ran out to intercept an opposition path as it crossed the half way line. My opponent was eager to atone for his mistake and was pursuing me before I’d even made contact with the ball. Then I was running towards the top left hand corner of the pitch, with the defender trying to cut off my angles. I cut inside forcing the opposition player to to turn around. I then took the ball outside again with my right foot having made some good space for myself before rocketing it into the bottom left hand corner with a powerful left footed shot that managed to take my right leg out completely leaving me with my arse on the floor.

My personal highlight of the game was when I received the ball in the half space with no teammates in front of me and no way of going forward. I ran backwards and took on pretty much every one on the oppositions team whilst following the path of an upside down question mark. I managed to get a shot off but the goalkeeper was equal to it and parried it away. If it had managed to find the back of the net, it definitely would have been in contention for my personal goal of the year.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I’m finishing off this update over two months after the game actually took place, so I have actually forgotten about my second goal entirely. All I know was that it was spectactular and all who were lucky enough to be in attendance were left awestruck

September 2021

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

After a busy summer, it was time for me to get back to football and I managed to keep to my current target of 2 goals a game.

Wednesday, September 15th 2021 - 2 goals

There was something in the air this cold Wednesday evening. For I was not the only player who had left their shooting boots at home. I have never seen a game of football in which so many perfectly healthy individuals missed so many chances, with many of them being absolute sitters.

Of course, I had my own share of embarrassing misses, but you readers are here to read about my triumphs, not my shortcomings, so I’ll move swiftly on and save myself some face. Having said that, neither of the goals I scored on the day are really worth writing about.

It was a cagy, end to end match, which made both team’s poor finishing all the more surprising. My first break came quite a while into the match. A ball was floated over the top from my defender and I ran towards goal with my eyes only on the ball. The goalkeeper had a similar idea and I’m sure you can see where this is going. I managed to get to the ball first and somehow managed to poke it between my opponents legs whilst simultaneously clattering him. Some of the opposing players said that it didn’t count, but nobody was officially keeping score. If Pelé says they all count, then who am I to disagree.

The second goal again was probably a lot less exciting than how I am going to describe it. Once again, I was the furthest player forward, and once again, a quick ball was launched forward for me to latch on to. This time the ball was low to the ground and the keeper was quick off his line. One touch was enough for me to poke it to my left and round the keeper, then it was a simple finish from the edge of the box to double my talley for the evening.

Premier League 2020/21 Predictions

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A new season of the Premier League is nearly upon us with the first match of the season between Brentford and Arsenal kicking off this Friday evening. Because of this, I thought it would be a good time to make some predicitons for the upcoming season so we can all have a laugh about how much I got wrong come next May.

There are still over two weeks until the transfer window closes, so I will be updating my predictions at the end of the month, and I will perhaps go into more details for the reasons behind my choices.

	Team
1	Man City
2	Chelsea
3	Man Utd
4	Liverpool
5	Leicester
6	Tottenham
7	Arsenal
8	Aston Villa
9	Everton
10	Leeds
11	West Ham
12	Crystal Palace
13	Wolves
14	Brighton
15	Brentford
16	Southampton
17	Burnley
18	Newcastle
19	Watford
20	Norwich

July 2021

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Sunday July 11th 2021 - 3 goals

This match took place just a few hours before the EURO 2020 final between England and Italy. This also means that it took place just a few hours before I drank copious amounts of alcohol and forgot most of the goals that I scored.

The main takeaways from the match were that I remember it being a particularly rainy day and nobody wanting to run around and injure themselves right before the big game. Because of this it meant that this game was right in my ball park. Not much running and the ball being unpredictable because of the weather.

My second goal of the night was the pick of the bunch. That is to say that it was the only goal that I can remember when I sat down to write this account at the end of the month. It was the sort of goal that is not often seen in these posts, or at my Sunday matches in general. That’s because it was a goal that was scored from a corner.

I start near the back post, but make a run along the line of the D and to the centre of the edge of the box. A low, hard drilled cross is pumped into the box with power, and it manages to evade all of the opposition defenders (and our own attackers). There was just enought pace on the ball that when I meet it with my right foot, I just need to aim it goalwards and the goalkeeper could do nothing to stop it smashing the back of the net.

As I mentioned, we played on the night of the EURO 2020 final, and following that result I decided to take a bit of a detox from football and consequently forgot my first and third goals of the evening. I seem to remember them being world class strikes though, so it’s a shame that you’ll never be able to read about them.

Sunday July 18th 2021 - 1 goal

This was a really interesting game for me. I started off playing really well. My touch was great and my passing was better than it normally was too. In fact my only goal of the night should have a special place in my collection.

There were two key moments which combined to make this beautiful goal. The first was a dummy that left the defender flatfooted on the halfway line. My teammate passed the ball from left back position to me in the midfield with pace and I noticed the only defender between me and the goal getting tight to me as the ball came to my feet. The pace on the ball demanded a good first touch especially with the oppostion breathing down my neck. However, instead of making that touch, I feigned going left and around the outside of the defender and actually just let the ball roll past me and him and ran onto it as quickly as I could.

The second key step was the finish. I was running at goal with only the keeper to beat, but with two defenders trying to catch up with me. On many previous weeks, I had been in similar situations and hadn’t kept my cool which makes the finish even better. I looked the keeper in the eyes as I was still running towards goal and using my eyes I convinced him that I was going to put it in the bottom corner. You can imagine the look on his face then when I slotted the ball between his legs as he stood motionless between the sticks.

Unfortunately, this was where my good luck came to an end. As for some reason, perhaps it was the food that I ate before the match, or a lack of a proper warm up, I ended up essentially running out of steam as soon as this goal went in and found myself barely able to run until I injured myself not long later and had to go home early.

Conclusion

Despite injuring my toe, I mananged to keep to a pretty decent return of two goals per game. I’m not sure when I’m going to be back, but I have a feeling that it’s not going to be until September at the very earliest.

At the start of the year, I set a goal for myself to score 100 goals in 2021. However at the start of July, in my update post, I decided that 100 goals was a little unatainable, so I decided to reduce the target to 50 goals.

Six months goal update

I only need 14 more goals before the end of the year to get there, and I’m quietly hopefully that I do that. Anyway, I doubt that I’ll play football in August so I’ll post here again in two months time and I hope to see you then.

June 2021

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

June was a great month for me in terms of football. It saw me manage to equal my record goals per game ratio, and saw lots of all around impressive football.

Sunday June 6th 2021 - 4 goals

The game started out with a bit of a weird tempo, and it took a while for people to settle into the game. This was highlighted a few minutes into the match when I found myself on the left hand side of the box with no pressure at all. When the ball came to me, I put my foot under it and the ball jumped up almost to my head, partly because I miscontrolled it, and partly because I was taking advantage of the free space to showboat. Still I was not closed down, so I let the ball bounce once before striking it to the keeper’s near side and into the back of the net.

After a spell of running around like a headless chicken, I found myself playing in a more defensive position. One of the opposition players went to the toilet in the middle of the match, so we ended up playing a rule which said that our team can only score from within the opposition’s box to make up for the one man advantage.

We saw a period of domination from our team that saw neither side have any effect on the scoreline. I found myself making a late run from the deepest position to the edge of the box around our midfielder who spotted the run and released the ball with a pinpoint pass. Then it was simply a first time finish to slot the ball in the back of the net.

For my third goal, I made a similar lung busting run from out to in and I would have found myself in acres of space had the midfielder spotted the run. He however chose to pass the ball out to the left wing and the defenders moved out to join the attacker. Our winger put in a first time cross which I tapped in deftly to complete my hattrick.

The final goal of the match was definitely the cream of the crop. I was on the right hand side of the pitch just past the half way line with an opposition defender closing in on me. The ball came to me and there was nobody on for a quick one-two, so I brought the ball in close inviting my opponent to get closer to me. He was exactly where I wanted him.

I quickly feigned left whilst simultanuously chopping the ball behind my legs. The defender fell for it hook, line and sinker, so I turned right and ran on to the ball that I had just put behind him. The finish itself wasn’t anything spectacular, but the skill was what made it a special goal.

Sunday June 27th 2021 - 2 goals

This game didn’t get off to a good start. I left my boots at home and my wife had to bring them over in the car, resulting in me having to play between the sticks barefooted for the first 30 minutes. Having said that I would go as far to say that this was my best match of the year so far.

Normally, I play with a dogged tenacity for the first half an hour or so before tiring out and walking around the pitch for the remaining hour. However, something was different today, as I was running like a mad man for the duration of the match and should probably have ended with more than two goals to show for my performance.

The first goal, not only highlighted my unusually high work ethic, it also was a good example of the lovely touch and poise I displayed on this fine Sunday evening. Not long after I had put my boots on, I was waiting at the end of the box, the ball came to me from the right and I used the inside of my left foot to take the ball past the opposing defender. This was followed by a cheeky right footed effort with the outside of the boot that somehow managed to wriggle its way past the keeper.

The second goal I scored in this match, is not going to win the Puskás Award anytime soon. I managed to latch on to a loose backpass from the defender that was intended for the goalkeeper but unfortunately for him was too short. With my back to goal, I did a quick spin before doing a first time shot which the keeper managed to save but could only push it as far as my teammate. The goalkeeper closed down the attacker, but the ball got away from him. Now the ball was spinning towards goal on a diagonal similarly to how the Earth revolves about its axis.

Now the race was on between me and the keeper. I was in a better starting position but had to show strength to hold off the man who has been playing rugby most of his life. The determination I showed had paid off as the ball and I both found ourselves at the back of the net.

Conclusion

A good return from two games, and I am particularly happy with both of my performances across the month. Despite only playing twice, I feel as though this month saw the best football I’ve played this year.

Over the next few months, I expect that my game time will see another drop and the target of 100 goals is looking unlikely at this point. It’s not going to stop me though and I’m going to keep on tracking my goals, and I also plan on setting the same target for myself next year.

May 2021

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

April was a month that was full of low quality tap ins. The quality of the goals I scored in May was definitely much higher.

I noticed that there was a recurring theme which was that I get tired really early on and play awfully for an hour or so until all the other players are tired too and then I have a strong period to finish the game.

Wednesday May 5th 2021 - 1 Goal

My first match in May happened to be on the morning of my birthday and a good start to my birthday it was.

Once again, I found myself playing in a more defensive role than I had in months past. Perhaps I should get used to teams not wanting or needing me for my attacking output.

My goal on this early Wednesday morning was one of my better goals recently.

I was waiting on the wing just inside my own half when I picked up the ball. The opposing defender quickly closed me down and I did well to shield the ball from him.

What followed was some of the trickiest trickery I have ever conjured up from my bag of tricks.

I dropped my shoulder giving the defender the illusion that I was about to run infield. Once the defender had committed, I quickly did a 180° outward spin as I made my way down the byline leaving the elderly defender with his arse planted firmly on the ground. To round up a wonderful move, I powered a quick first time effort past the keeper beating him at his top right corner.

Sunday May 16th 2021 - 2 Goals

This was a very average game for me. I didn’t really contribute anything substantial for the first hour. We had been out for a big dinner with some friends we hadn’t seen for a long time and I probably ended up eating more than any serious athlete should before a match.

Perhaps it could be considered tactically wise letting the other players tire themselves out before scoring two average goals. Perhaps it would be considered being, unfit and too lazy to track back when my team was defending and being on the end of two lucky breaks. We will never know.

Sunday May 30th 2021 - 2 Goals

This match as a whole was without a doubt one of the worst footballing performances of recent time. However, the two goals I scored were two of the best goals I have scored since I began tracking all my goals at the start of the year.

Once again, a poor performance was saved by two very late goals once everybody was tired.

For the first of the goals I can’t really explain what came over me when I received the ball on the edge of the box. The ball arrived at my feet as I had my back to goal, and I could feel the keeper making his way to my position. For some reason that I will never know until the day I die, I did a silly little jump which obviously did a great job confusing the goalkeeper. As soon as I landed, I scooped the ball with my right foot whilst turning to face goal and stroked it between the keeper’s legs and into the back of the net.

My second goal was a goal that any below average footballer would be proud of. Straight after kick off, the I managed to peel away from a defender on the left hand side. My team mate found me in acres of space. However, by now the defender I had previouly out-manouvered had made his way back into position and was doing his best to stop me from getting a shot away.

I must thank the poor fella actually because in his quick return to position, he managed to create a good line for me to see the goal clearly. So, I squared up the shot and managed to curl it around the big defender and it flew past the keeper who had no chance of saving it.

Conclusion

Another average month in which my goals per game ratio fell to a measly two. I will need to play another 37 games in the next seven months if I intend to complete my goal of 100 goals before the end of the year.

April 2021

Fri, 30 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

April was a high scoring month, but truth be told, the quality of the goals I scored was very low. It seems as though at least half of my goals were scrappy toe pokes or rebounded efforts.

Sunday April 4th 2021 - 2 Goals

This was another match in which I quickly ran out of energy and spent the majority of the match running on empty steam. In fact I was fortunate to score any goals at all in this game.

The first of my goals was as scrappy as they come. I latched on to a through ball at the edge of the box, and was one on one with the goalkeeper. I shot once and the keeper parried it away but he put it straight back in my path. My follow up struck the post, once again returning to where I kicked it from. Finally, an off-balanced right footed effort managed to squeeze between my opponent and the woodwork.

Unfotunately, my second goal has escaped me, but much like all the others, it probably wasn’t worth writing about. This should serve as a reminder to spend a few minutes writing these updates on the evening of the match.

Sunday April 11th 2021 - 1 Goal

This week’s solitary goal was perhaps the pick of the month for April. The ball came out to me whilst I was waiting on the left wing. I ran infield at a 45° angle which resulted in me actually running past the mouth of goal. On my way to the edge of the box, I dribbled past two opposing players and kept on going. The goalkeeper was confused by the way that I ran past him, and I took his confusion as an opportunity. I unleashed a no look pass that trickled past the keeper into the bottom left corner.

Sunday April 25th 2021 - 4 goals

This match was the first match against real opposition that I’ve played in since December. We thought that we would be playing a team of old Chinese men, but our reputation is well known throughout these parts, and the original team chose to back down. As a result of their cowardice, there was an opportunity for a team full of football coaches to step up as our opposition.

We got off to a good start and managed to pull a few goals a head early on. I managed to get my name on the score sheet quite early too, when I poked home a well worked team goal from about three yards out.

My second goal was quite a lucky goal. I was standing at then end of the opposition box between two defenders, when a well placed trough ball managed to bypass their midfield and find its way between the two defenders I was occupying and landed right at my feet. It would have been more difficult to miss a shot like that.

The final two goals were both very similar. I was lurking near the half way line, shirking my defensive responsibilities waiting for a counter attacking chance. As our team’s main attacking outlet at the time, as soon as anyone won the ball, they’d quickly pump it out to me on the right wing. I controlled the ball nicely both times before firing home firstly with my left and then ten minutes later with my right.

Conclusion

On the whole, April was kind of a forgettable goalscoring month, depsite it being my highest return so far this year. As the weather is getting warmer, there will perhaps be opportunities for more matches, but that remains to be seen.

March 2021

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

March comes around and so does the opportunity to score more goals. In general, I ended up doing a lot more defending than I had in previous months, so it reflects quite poorly on my goal talley. Anyway, enough with the excuses, let’s see how I got on.

Sunday March 7th 2021 - 2 goals

This was a match in which I spent more time in our own half than in the opponents. Whenever I play football, I can tell within the first few minutes if I’m feeling leggy or if I’ll be able to run about like a madman all game. This was one of the former days, and I barely had a sniff of the goal in the first half.

As time went on and other players caught up with my level of legginess, the game opened up. People started tracking back a lot less which gave me a great opportunity to loiter between the two opposition defenders.

Then when a well weighted through ball was slipped between the two of them, it was easy enough for me to hook onto it with the laces of my right boot with a powerful first time shot across the keeper.

The game was drawing to a close, and both teams were trying to get a final goal that they both felt their teams deserved on the night. With both teams pushing, it became counter attack after counter attack with very few defenders doing any actual defending of note.

A long ball over the top was latched onto by one of our better players and he lured the keeper towards him before passing the ball to me as I arrived in the box for a sweaty tap in.

Sunday March 14th 2021 - 1 goal

Generally speaking, my preferred position is an upfront free roaming role with little defensive responsibilities. So when another player who runs even less than me ends up on my team, I need to adjust my game. This is what I have been doing quite a lot lately and is particulary evident in this match where I had a quiet night in front of goal.

An early goal was all I really had to offer in terms of an attacking output. I was waiting near the right wing and moved towards the edge of the box as the ball came to my feet. A quick right footed control and a left footed curled effort into the top left corner was enough to beat the keeper. But other than that it was a quiet game for me.

Sunday March 21st 2021 - 3 goals

A quiet week was followed by an eventful Sunday, which saw me finish a healthy three goals.

I started the match in goal, and was playing well, but the rest of my team were struggling in the transitional phases. When it was time for me to come out of the net, I went and quickly scored a powerful shot from the edge of the box after a player on the right wing found me in space. It was perhaps my first touch as an outfield player.

My second goal of the night was one of my more impressive goals in recent memory. I was waiting on the right wing and the ball came to my feet. I feigned running down the line before cutting inside and beating the defender. Then I unleashed a powerful low shot across the keeper with the ball rustling the back of the net.

Finally, a goal came from an area that despite my height, I do not tend to excel in. Set pieces. In our six a side games, we opt for kick-ins over throw-ins and they normally don’t lead to anything significant.

We had a kick-in from the left hand side and I made a wiley run between the two lines of defense. Then with the defetest of touches, I kicked the ball with the outside of my right boot and managed to capture everybody flat-footed. The ball ended up in the back of the net much to everybody’s surprise and I wheeled away in adulation from my team mates.

Conclusion

March was the month that saw me earn my first points in my end of year table that I linked in my 2021 goals post. 14 goals from 7 games is not too shabby and I’m happy with my progress. I haven’t decided to start playing more matches in a frantic panic to reach my target number of goals, but who knows if I will.

February 2021

Fri, 05 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A much better performance in February, even though I didn’t play any football until the month was almost over. 6 goals in a week. If I can keep it up at this rate, I’ll be done well before the summer.

Wednesday, February 25th 2021 - 3 goals

My return to the hallowed pitch was on an unexpected Wednesday morning. We were planning to stay at S’s parents for the whole month, but I was getting a bit sick of all the Chinese new year hospitalities, so we made an excuse to go back early.

Whilst I was well rested over the holiday, most of my friends were not. They were playing at least twice a week and had competitive tournaments as well. Would my fresh legs prove to be advantageous on this chilly Wednesday morning? Not really. My legs were mostly full of hot pot and Chinese baijiu.

The match started off evenly and I got off the mark quite early. Great movement and runs are not attributes that I typically associate with my general style of play. I made a clever in to out run, running from the centre of the pitch to the right, as I slipped behind the opposing defender. The run was spotted by our team’s midfielder who made an inch perfect throughball that I latched onto before slotting the ball in the far corner with a first time finish.

The next goal was perhaps a bit more lucky, but it was a good finish nontheless. This time I held the ball up on the right wing before laying it off to a teammate who feigned turning backwards, drawing the opposing midfielder before disguising a backheel return ball back up the right wing, catching the opposition and me offguard. I managed to get a hold of the ball before the defender could catch up with me, and at this point I really noticed how leggy the rest of the guys were, leaving me with only one option which was to go for goal myself. My shot almost resembled a cross in technique, but it managed to beat the keeper at his near post.

As the game went on, it was impossible for me to avoid feeling just as leggy as the rest of my teammates, and it’s fair to say that there was a noticeable drop in quality as the game went on. I feel as though my third goal doesn’t even warrant me taking time to write about.

Basically, both teams were tired and there wasn’t much tracking back, and I scored a sweaty goal from 3 yards out. I hope you enjoyed reading that.

Sunday, February 28th 2021 - 3 goals

My second match in February was quite uneventful despite scoring three goals. We had 18 players, and because people in the group decided they didn’t want to rotate three teams of six on one pitch, we ended up playing a 5v5 and a 4v4 match with rotations. An early injury led to that basically becoming three teams of four. For the first hour or so, we just ran about tiring ourselves out without scoring many goals.

After an hour or so, some people had had enough and decided to go home, leaving us with enough for a 6v6 match with a few subs. I was on the bench for a while and then somebody came with a load of free pizzas provided by Rob’s MVP pizza. I had two slices and felt revitalised. It made me wonder why pizza is never considered a halftime orange alternative.

I came on once again with a pizza induced swagger and made a quick impact. Our defender launched a long ball over the top that I brought down before finishing with a half volley. This goal has definitely got to be up there with the best goal that I’ve scored this year. So far.

The next two goals were quite standard goals an to be honest, I don’t really remember any particular details of them. The three goals I scored at the end of the match took place in the space of about five minutes.

The pizza might have had some drug-like properties as it enhanced my game, while also making me unable to remeber what happened.

Conclusion

Despite only playing two matches, february was a much better month than I expected. March will hopefully be even better as I hope it will be the first time when I can consistently play football for a whole month.

I am much more optimistic that I can reach my target now than I was when I wrote my last update. When I came up with my original new year’s goals, I thought that this would be the hardest of all of my goals. However, this is something that as long as I go to football every week, the number should at least go up.

I need to work this month on the number of books I’m reading and sit down and plan out and write a few blog posts too.

January 2021

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This year seems to be going a little bit differently so far. I haven’t played a midweek match and the matches I have played have been more competitive.

If I keep up at this rate, I won’t even be hitting a quarter of my targetted goals. Admittedly, I missed the first Sunday session as it was over the New Year’s holiday and I was staying at S’s parents However, the biggest reason for my lack of play time was that I suffered a toe injury that kept me out for three weeks.

Sunday, January 10th 2021 - 0 goals

I was very excited for my first match of the year. Having scored 7 goals in the final match of 2020, I was eager to continue my fine goalscoring form into the New Year. Those of you who have played football with me before, will have a certain preconceived image of the type of player I am. Forza BJFC! But, my game has evolved since the days of playing John, Gordon, Ali and the boys at the Fenham Cage.

Nowadays, I can often be seen leading the line for my side. I’m either setting the tempo for the team’s press, or I’m providing an option for our defenders to go long to. But on the night of my first match of 2021, I couldn’t do either of these effectively.

It started out with two fairly unbalanced sides. I was our furthest player forward, but I probably only had about five shots before being forced off through injury. No one on the team had a particularly bad game, the teams were just uneven from the beginning.

Personally, besides my poor finishing when the rare chance presented itself, the other areas of my game were quite good on the night. My personal highlight was perhaps the greatest recovery run that Chengdu has ever seen. I noticed that there was an attacker loitering on the right hand side of our box unmarked and I sprinted 75% of the pitch and made a calm interception just before the low drilled cross met its target.

My best chance to score was actually what led to me colliding toes with their goalkeeper and bruising my big toe just after the hour mark. We had just conceded and I was taking the kick-off. I layed the ball off to our midfielder who returned it to me as I passed their first line of defence. There was little the next defender could do as I peeled of to the left before quickly turning back inside.

It kind of became a blur at this point. I know that I beat their last defender and made my way into the box, but I let the ball get to close to the goalkeeper. He was quick off his line and he managed to clear the ball and my big toe with a powerful kick.

As much as the sheer determination to score goals urged me on, the inability to run or kick the football was ultimately too much for me this day and I went home early, sulking all the way home.

Sunday, January 31st 2021 - 2 goals

To welcome the Chinese New Year, it was decided that the final match of January would be a four-way tournament. I ended up on a team called whose name was either “The Underdogs” or “Big Dogs”, depending on who you asked. We went into the tournament quite literally as underdogs, so there was no pressure or expectations on us. We were free to go out and express ourselves on the pitch.

Big Dogs vs Angels 1-4

Our first match was against the bookies’ favourites and eventual champions, Angels. We started the game defending well and were unlucky to concede an early goal. Great character was shown by all as we kept our heads up. Shortly after, great pressure on the opposing goalkeeper from yours truly, resulted in us pegging one back.

For the next five or ten minutes, the match was even. I put a tasty in swinging corner into the box and the big centre back for Angels, I think his name might have been Gabriel or something, managed to shoulder it onto the far post, where it bounced off directly to our attacker who hit the crossbar but couldn’t keep it under. The woodwork was rattled twice in five seconds.

Eventually, we ended up capitulating and losing the game 4-1, but we can take pride in the fact that it was only the quality of our finishing between the two sides on the day.

Big Dogs vs Englads 1-4

Next up was our match against Englads with special guest English Dave. This is a team that has been playing together week in week out for at least 60 years. A more appropriate name might have been EngOAPs.

This was another match of close margins. Two wonderstrikes from the experienced team aside, it was a close but enjoyable match in which I personally did little that warrants writing in this post.

Big Dogs vs La Dance 6-8

Up until this point, we had a grand total of 0 points in the tournament and some lesser teams might have just downed tools, but not the Big Dogs. Before this match had even begun, there was cause to be concerned going into the final match. We had heard whispers from the Englads team, that La Dance had been cheating in their first match. I can tell you that I speak on behalf of all the Big Dogs players when I say there is no room for cheating in the Gentleman’s Football Federation 1st Annual CNY 5-a-side Tournament brought to you in association with Rob’s MVP Pizza.

I started the game in between the sticks and I was shouting very passionately at all of my teammates from as soon as the whistle went. La Dance settled into the game quickly and managed to get a few past me. Were the Big Dogs players tired after playing two matches? Perhaps they could conjure up the energy to take the game back to La Dance.

About five minutes later, I’d just come outfield and I’m playing on the left. The ball comes to me and I quickly tap it past the oncoming defender. I feigned going inside and pulled the ball to my left leaving the next defender with nothing he could do. As a team, our finishing had been poor all night, but could I put this ball away when it really mattered?

I fired a cheeky right footed shot through the keeper’s legs as the crowd went wild. We did actually have a group of supporters and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately we couldn’t capitalise on the goal and after the thirty minutes were up the score was supposedly 8-3.

After this, we kept on saying one more goal and we kept on scoring. There were great team goals, great individual goals and even great goals on the counter. Everybody managed to get in on the act.

Eventually we had to call time on the game and La Dance reported the score as 8-3 to the organisers, saying that all goals scored after some arbitrary point they decided without telling us shouldn’t count to the score as we were just having a kickabout while we waited for the other match to end. I’m not sure what the real final score should have been, but we definitely had more than 3 goals. If we had played the way we did at the end for the whole duration of the match, who knows what the result would have been. Too little too late, I guess.

Overall, I’m disappointed with my goal talley for the month and I can tell you now that next month will probably be even worse. I am staying at S’s parents for most of the month and will probably only be able to play one match on the final Sunday of February. If I can score 14.6666 goals in that match, it should get me back on target for 100 goals in 2021.