The Raiders took to the pitch on another dark and stormy Saturday Afternoon. Thu Duc was the venue and with the away team arriving 20 minutes late a delayed kickoff was needed.

The good guys started off in their classic 4-5- 1 formation with Daniel “I don’t train” Hogg up front and behind him Nico “25% bodyfat” Greeve. On the wings were Edwin “Apo” Pfeil and Michael “I’m moving to Japan maybe China” Clark. And behind Nico was Sipho “wants it” McNoob and Craig “more dirty challenges than an entire season of fear factor” Armitt. In middle of defense was Colin “I workout more than a professional athlete” Dixon and Jerry “I save my best games for preseason” Hofstra. At right back was Vincent “red card” German and left back Nano “Argentina will lose to the US” Argentina. That left player-manager Pat with Pornpaisarn “best name ever” Chotampon, Robbie “what’s his name?” Peterson and Collin “Fusion defector” Owens on the bench to use in the substitutions.

It became abundantly clear early in the game that this team would be no pushover. The Viet side moved the ball extremely well in typical Vietnamese fashion starting with their back four, into a controlling midfielder then fired up to the wings. The Raiders took a step back from their last game and decided to hold their shape rather than press far up the pitch. Two minutes in the Viets knock one off Colin’s butt past Mirko to make it 1-0.

A few minutes later Hoggy latched onto a through ball and tied the match up 1-1. It was a game of chase from that point forward, the Vietnamese side would go up 2-1, then Hoggy would respond to make it 2-2 with a nice near post shot on a fake keeper. The first half ended 2-2.

The Raiders started the second half much better and kept a compact shape and clean sheet for the first 30 minutes then the onslaught ensued. Viets score to go up 3-2, Hoggy scores (maybe not) to equalize 3-3, Viet’s score on a cheap foul in the box that wasn’t called to go up 4-3, Armitt knocks home a sitter only Dele Ali could miss to even the scoring line again. Finally as the rain started to pick up a bit an absolute screamer goes past Mirko to put the Viet’s in the lead for good 5-4.

The rain started to pour down and Vincent runs up the field to take a throw in. He throws it ingeniously off the defenders back after the Viet player tried to block the throw with his hands. Vincent is shown his second yellow (not sure when the first one happened) and is sent off.

Overall this was a gritty performance by the Raiders who have been missing some key players in the past few weeks. Great work up and down the pitch especially from Vincent, Sipho, and Hoggy, who really kept the shape solid throughout the game. Shout out to the referee who clearly lost it in the final ten minutes of the game for an otherwise mediocre performance.