Dragon Open 9:2 SWC

---Written By Huan Li

It is not a typo. It is 9:4, which looks more like
score for a baseball game, instead of 9:0 or 1:0. For
those who did not make the game, do not ask me what,
why,and how. The one of right things we did was
getting back 3 more points with us. The score itself
may not be important as it is supposed to be a
forfeited game. It may not be an easy game if those
five of their players without cards were allowed to
play. The poor captain showed how many cards he had
before negotiating with the referee. They had to play
at least the first half before giving up, as they met
the minimum requirement to start a game. Otherwise,
they need to pay penalty besides the referee fee. The
game then became more like a friendly scrimmage and
the referee seldom blew his whistle. Although they
were short of many players, they tried very hard and a
couple of them never stopped hassling in the whole
game. We possessed the ball for most of time as
expected but the game looked not very smooth as it
normally took us a while before deciding where to pass
the ball. We also made many mistakes while we were too
relaxed. This was not my concern though. My only
disappointment to this game was that we did not fully
utilize this opportunity to improve our passing game,
although our opponent was quite cooperative. We are
going to face to stronger opponents in the rest of
this season. We have to do better job on shifting the
ball to the teammate(s) in open space or safe area as
quick as possible. This requires more one-touch and/or
two-touch pass and more running into the open space.
We need to do more square pass and backward pass for
controlling the game tempo and waiting for a better
chance. The rule of thumb is to pass the ball to the
teammate who has a better view on the other side ASAP.
Today, we intend to send the ball in forward direction
for most of time. Although it could result in some
quick counter-attack, it kept our three lineups
separated and caused quick offense-to-defense
transitions. We need to seek a balance between the
quick attack and ball possession according to the game
situation. Another thing is that we are pretty good at
sending the ball behind the opponent defense and
seeking 1-on-1 score chance. Up to now, almost all our
goals were made in this way. This is our strength and
there is nothing wrong about it. However, when we play
against an opponent with faster and stronger defense,
sticking with one way without changes may not work
well. We would like to see more goals made by head,
long shot, etc..

Rusty Nuts is on rising now and it got 7 points from
top teams in last three games. Either something went
wrong for Dallas-Peru or Rusty Nuts now gets very
physical and solid defense. I can not imagine the same
team was beat by Irving Arsenal with big margin and
was unable to beat SWB. One thing for sure is that
this team is not afraid of technical team, but may
have trouble with physical and speedy team. As it
becomes another potential competitor for the playoff
spot, the game becomes very critical for us. We need
to get well prepared and hope every of us can make the
game. I would propose to count every one goal as two
for this game in the score board.

Go Dragons,

Li Huan