Match Review: Singapore Football Club vs FC Nippon

• GK Santino Shepherd
• DF Adam Wise
• DF Roberto Bruce
• MD Joe Claridge
• MD Tim Walter
• MD Wes Adeyemi
• MD Michael Campion
• ST Liam Shotton
• -- Ryosuke Ataku
• -- Malcolm Amour
• -- Akil Pompey

• DF Keith Goh
• ST Fazrul Nawaz
• -- Matt Hulen

First Match Thriller

The first match of the season got off to a fantastic start as Ataku-san chipped the Nippon GK with a fantastic first-touch 40 yard effort in the first few minutes of the match. That quick strike helped to set the tone for SFC to take control of the match through sharp passing and possession. The half ended 1-0 with the momentum on SFC’s side. Early in the second half Liam found space through the middle of the pitch and laced a shot that forced a strong handed save from the Nippon GK, but he could only redirect it into the path of Ataku-san for his brace. SFC continued to push for more, but Nippon with their never say quit attitude found a way back into the match through a well taken strike around 60 minutes into the match. At that point momentum and possession changed hands to favor Nippon as they pushed for an equalizer. They eventually found one through their savvy veteran striker, Kike. Kike baited Wisey into lunging a foot into a tackle that Kike “wise-ly” fell over to draw a pen. After a long delay Takuya calmly and decisively put his penalty into the bottom corner to draw the match at 2-2. Last season may have seen SFC lose their composure and drop all points, but there are new players and a new mentality. SFC got on with the match and back onto the front foot and we’re rewarded with about 10 minutes left to play as a good passing sequence found Faz with space to round the Nippon GK and deliver the goal and the 3 points to SFC. It was a cracking start to the season and a fantastic view for the neutral footy fan. Good luck to Nippon for their matches ahead and much respect to your effort on the day.

• Takaki NAKAMURA GK
• Ryuko Mon DF
• Katsumi Oku DF
• Kotaro Hayashi DF
• Tomo Fujimura MD
• Enrique Sanchez MD
• Mokchan Kim ST
• Takuya Hagino ST
• Jo Kagitani --
• Shuhei Goto --
• Jason CHUA --

• Sho Yasui MD
• Tsubasa Nakanishi MD
• Akira Yokoyama MD
• Ryohei Kanzaki MD

Another tough start of the season

The Japanese team started the league opening game with a rather small squad as the summer holiday season in Japan and some unfortunate injuries forced the team to play without a few key players. The team discussed to focus on defense in the first half. However, the squad was punished by an early build up failure in the first 1-2 minutes. Some communication errors allowed the SFC’s Japanese winger to steal the ball and fire a long looping shot which the keeper could only touch with a finger and couldn’t change the course. 0-1. This disappointing start woke up the Samurai spirit and the rest of the first half became competitive. SFC's approach was to simply play from the side backs, put in long feeds to their strong forwards (such as Liam). SFC had more men in the midfield, so Nippon struggled control the possession which they will usually do in other games and this enabled SFC to create a few threats, but most of the shots were luckily out of target or were denied by the keeper. Nippon also created a few opportunities including a header from a corner kick which hit the post but couldn’t score in the first half. In the second half, there was a position change in SFC’s attacker i.e. Liam changed his position from center to a side player and started to receive the ball more on the left side, creating a basis for SFC to crack in. It was about 10min in the second half when SFC got a chance by reflecting a long ball from Nippon Defense where Liam managed to fire a shot in the penalty area. Nippon’s keeper quickly reacted to the shot and managed to redirect it with his right hand, but the Japanese winger of SFC, Ataku, was in a good position to collect and bury the ball in the net. 0-2. The rest of the game was again very competitive, and Nippon couldn’t see a clear path to change the game. However, one accurate long ball from the left side defender, Shuhei, made a drama in the mid of the second half. Tsubasa, the right midfielder, reacted to the laser beam feed and delivered a creative direct loop shot which went over SFC keeper’s head. The keeper made his best effort to back step and touch the ball, but it only slightly changed the course, and the first goal from Nippon was borne. 1-2. Ten minutes later, Kike, the Spanish striker, received a long ball, entered the penalty area and made a challenge when he was fouled and got a penalty kick. Hagi, the top Japanese scorer in the team calmly buried it in the left side net and now the score became 2-2. However, SFC reacted very well after this goal. They attacked very hard and about 40 minutes into the second half, from a couple of beautiful direct passes, they delivered a last pass to the forward who managed to avoid the keeper’s challenge and scored. 2-3. After that, SFC obviously started to keep the ball and although Nippon tried hard to regain and deliver long balls to the attacking zone, they could not make a big change. Final score 2-3 MVP of SFC: Ataku who scored 2 goals MVP of Nippon: Katsumi who tirelessly stopped SFC's opportunities and ran hard to created attacking chances