March 4, 2012

Today's match against the Chung Hsing University "A" team (which included our sometimes-teammate Jose) started as a relatively challenging match but eventually ended as a 6-1 thumping.

Compass turned up with an unexpectedly high number of players--16--which included our special guest returnee teammate Alan, back for a brief appearance after a 2+ year absence and still looking very strong in the midfield. We were a bit rusty at the beginning and CHU actually managed to score first, about 16 minutes in, on a fairly comical error by Chris, who became confused by the strangely-marked end lines and was convinced the ball was out of bounds when it wasn't. Perhaps we can thank Chris for that piece of motivation because Compass scored its first goal couple minutes later when Gaetan equalized with a nice lob on an open net. At around 38 minutes, Marin ably assisted with a diagonal pass to Rob, who scored our second.

The second half saw a rash of goals, starting nine minutes in with a Chris throw-in to Daniel who popped it over to Marin, who scored a nice header. This was followed about 13 minutes later by a keeper error and goal by Cesar, who scored yet again a couple minutes later off a beautiful drive by Arnaud. Ben then wrapped things up with our sixth and final goal 9 minutes from the final whistle off a deflected cross by Gaetan. Throughout it all, our defense was able to contain the occasional strong CHU stab at our goal, with Gary kept awake with the necessity to make a couple good saves.

Played in sunny, fairly hot temperatures, this match was a good warm-up to our upcoming Cup Tournament in Kaohsiung.

http://www.100pacers.com/2012wintercup/wintercup2012.htm

GO COMPASS!

Doug