End of A Fairy Tale

Unseeded. Unheralded. Barely known.

But after today's match, Ramblers would be anything but the above. The stage was set for a David vs. Goliath meeting. The tournament's underdogs up against the defending champions in a game that was 1 step away from a final at City Stadium. It couldn't get better than this. But it did.

If CRC thought that Ramblers would buckle under pressure and just roll over, they were sadly mistaken. For the first time, Ramblers played not only with their hearts on their sleeves, but they played with their heads as well; moving the ball around smartly, getting into good positions and closing down the opponents rapidly. It was football at the highest level that would have left the purists beaming. Heng and Brown were their usual powerful selves, Poay was wizardry personified, Max covered every inch of grass, Siang looked possessed, Derek bamboozled their right-back into substitution, Keong and Sin were solid, Adrian reliable and Chard made his presence felt at the back. The big blue machine had rolled into town.

With a 4-2-3-1 formation, Ramblers drew first blood when Poay sent in a low shot inside off the right post to give Ramblers the lead. But a 15 minute blitz saw our efforts short-lived. Two corners, and CRC got their 2 goals. Their first corner saw an unmarked Ah Han rising above our defenders at the far post to head in the equalizer. Their second came courtesy of Eng Hock who made a speculative shot from the edge of the box that saw the ball bounce fortuitously out of the reach of Chris and into the net. Those were the only notable efforts CRC had besides a long range Wai Loon lob that Chris did well to tip over the bar. But they were to prove enough.

Despite the 1 goal deficit, Ramblers continued pressing for the equalizer without compromising our gameplay. The second-half saw Ramblers wasting very good opportunities to tie the game with Brown and Max missing two very good chances. The introduction of the ever industrious Jason midway through the half strengthen our midfield. But ladyluck didn't smile on us and in the end we lost the game to two well-taken goals. Their experience had carried them through to the final. With so much pre-match hype regarding Wai Loon and Ah Han, they were kept on a short leash and had very little impact on the game with our midfield and defenders magnificent through and through.

Although we lost, we showed that we could compete at the highest level. On the evidence of today's performance, the team has the potential to go really far. But we have to build on this success or else it'll remain just that... potential. However, let no one take it away from us, that we were definitely the better team today. To put it into perspective... Ramblers Rocked!