Match Report 6-0 Win vs. Tunghai University

October 21, 2012

Today's match versus Tunghai University wasn't our prettiest game, but we improved as we went along--despite the first half ending 0-0, the final score was 6-0 in our favor.

A completely unknown opponent for us, Tunghai showed up with a sizable squad that included a number of foreign players--a couple Latin American players who weren't bad, a German, Frenchman, some Hong Kong guys and others. If I heard correctly, their coordinator told me that they took 4th place in the national university tournament last year. They played hard the entire game and certainly had some good chances on our net that were kept out largely through the skills of our substitute keeper Clement, who made some nice saves (including a beautiful bending chip targeted perfectly at our right upper corner). It was also nice to have Eric Katzung (with his new wife cheering from the sidelines) back and anchoring defense with David.

The first half was an exercise in frustration for Compass, as we largely allowed ourselves to play on Tunghai's terms and didn't implement our potent short ground-passing game or use both sides of the pitch. Although large stretches of time were spent in Tunghai's half, we failed to score several times, including a Cesar near-miss in the final seconds.

Regrouping and refocusing after half-time, Compass was largely a different team in the second half, with Robert scoring 5 minutes in on an assist by Cesar. Barely a minute later, Artem got a nice break straight down the middle and into a one-on-one situation with the keeper. He pulled a defender right in behind him, slowed down and was blatantly dragged down by the defender in the box. Cesar scored the resulting PK to put us up 2-0 and the offending Tunghai player got a red card.

At the 58-minute mark, Ben got a goal off a nice pass by Cesar to Artem, who assisted. The next two goals came from Daniel at around 75 minutes, and Ben five minutes after that. The final goal, about 3 minutes from the final whistle, resulted when Artem put a beautiful long lead pass through the defensive line and onto Laurent charging through the middle.

Despite the lopsided final score, Tunghai was a decent side and is certainly worth playing again. It's good to find another Taichung football competitor, too.

OUR NEXT MATCH: As noted last week, next Sunday, Oct. 28 is OFF. However, I hope you'll all be out for SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4 when we take on Tubbies again and work to reclaim our pride and honor. Please note that we have scheduled this game for 5 PM, so it will be mostly played under the lights. Several of you said you wanted to try an evening time, giving you more of your Sunday. Let's get our very best side out there for this one, men!

Have a good week and make sure you make it out to the epic Taichung Jazz Festival, particularly on Saturday/Sunday late afternoons/evenings (to 10 pm), when it's huge (I estimate a crowd of about 20,000 last night). Also let me know if you want to join me at the Charity Walkathon next Sunday afternoon--you can bring friends, family, kids, etc. and make it a fun afternoon for a great cause.

Go Compass!

Doug