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Kamal Ibrahim's Blog
Match: Game v. Sydney
Date: Sunday, 5/12/2009
On Sunday 5th December the AIS travelled to Sydney to play Sydney FC. We had played them in the first round and were beaten 1 – 0 so we were looking forward to playing them again and hopefully getting a win despite the 2-3 year age difference in our teams. Our coaches, Jan Versleijen and Gary Van Egmond told us before the game that they were a physical side so not to get in to any battles with them – just play football.
In the first half we dominated the game and had plenty of chances but their goalie made some good saves. In the last minute of the first half we were rewarded for our good play when Eli Babalj made a well placed shot in the bottom right corner. At half time, our coaches said they were happy with how we were going but that we needed to keep the work rate up and keep focussed.
In the second half, we started where we left off in the first half but then Sydney started to get on top and dominate the game. They equalised 10 mins in with a soft goal and then scored again due to a defensive lapse in concentration making the score 2 -1 to them. They kept attacking due to us tiring but we managed to equalise with 10 mins to go after a through ball by Pat Dixon to Eli Babalj who left footed it past the keeper. We felt we deserved to equalise because we had played well and were certainly the equal of Sydney but a couple of concentration lapses had let us down.
We play Perth this week in Canberra and we are ready for our first win particularly given that last time we played them in Canberra we were up 2 – 0 early and could definitely match it with them. We have a few injuries at the moment but hope this won’t affect us too much.
By Kamal Ibrahim
