U13B v Ibstock Place 5-2 loss

As storm Darragh blew past, the mighty U13B’s hosted Ibstock Place School in a friendly, under lights, with the 1XI’s Veo camera in operation, recording the match. Would anyone want to see the replays?

Ibstock were delayed, so we used to time to talk through scenarios starting with playing out from the back. Turns out we do know what to do!

Once we got going, GK Maxi Kimber was soon in action as Ibstock started strongly and CB’s Will Norman and Walter Hancock tried to clear wave after wave of attacks. LB Jack McDowell was combining well with LW Sofyan Ghuwel and Sofyan’s tricky dribbling skills were making life uncomfortable for their defense. However you can’t neglect your defensive duties and when we had a corner, everyone went up and left their striker alone on halfway. One long clearance later and he was in on goal. 1-0. Maxi O’Neal had a valid penalty appeal denied. Was it going our way? We had a wobble at that point, failed to clear from a corner it was 2-0 going into half-time.

Second half and we showed more determination moving the ball around the park and trying to string together passes, moving the ball into midfield and then going wide. A lack of patience and ball control coughed the ball up in defense as they pressed and it was 3-0. Despite the scoreline, the players kept working, that link down the left bore more fruit as Sofyan danced his way into the box, shot and slipped the ball into the corner of the goal. 5 minutes later, he did it again! At 3-2 it could have gone either way, but opposition usually want to win and inexplicably, we relaxed. Perhaps we thought they would gift us the game? Their work rate went up and we stopped running so hard, especially in the middle of the park. Jacob Ennis made one excellent tackle on their speedy winger and Stefan Jotic tried to combine with Sofyan and Sofyan kept shooting. He was really close with another effort, but they broke away, we didn’t track back and their winger finished with precision.

The final score of 5-2 didn’t really reflect the game, but we should never be out-worked. Check the replays! We go again on Saturday with our festive end-of-term tournament.