On Saturday the 24th of Nov Saigon Raiders FC took on Fighting Cocks FC in an enthralling encounter, a battle that was not only about scrambling for 3 match points, but the Fighting Cocks were also looking forward to securing a win against the recent Champion title holders, a win they have not been able to get for the last 3 seasons.
The game started with a kick off by Raiders Captain Clemens (who has been well noted in the league for his persistence fighting and usual goal scoring habit).

Early pressing on the Cocks back line resulted to a lost of a glaring goal opportunity by the champions’ mid field Nicolai, who stroke a shot inches away from the opponents penalty spot that hits the side post and went off play.

Having had a couple of good goal chances early in the game, the Raiders seemed to developed an ‘Easy to win game’ impression which caused them to relax especially defensively, allowing a through pass to tear across the defence and was eventually received by the newly signed Cock’s forward Edward, who after just a single touch was able to drive a shot into the goal net resulting to a 1 goal lead by the Cocks. The Cocks rapidly built more confidence with their one goal up advantage and press on the Raiders’ defence continuously resulting into another goal in favor of FCFC by Cock’s holding midfielder, who took a shot from outside the Penalty box into the goal net. The first half came to an end after a few more minutes of play with FCFC leading 2 goals to nil.

The refree signalled the second half with Raiders matching back into the pitch reflecting on the wake up call and technical advice given to them by Raider’s Legend and long term serving Coach Collin. The team is known to have the fastest and deadliest attack. Trying to maintain their record of ‘No match lost’ for the season and unbeaten by FCFC for the last 3 seasons b c.f.seasons, the current champions came back in with a hunger to win, mounting excessive pressure I’m their ‘Prey’ from second half kick of time right on to the end of the match, resulting to 3 goals scored in favor of the Champions alongside many missed goal opportunities; great finishes from Jonas (the German international who has earlier made his hat trick debut with the club this season), Chris (making his debut and first goal for the club; beautifully receiving a rebound on his chest and fired a right foot volley shot into the back of Fighting Cocks’ goal net), and Captain Clemens (labelling one goal and one goal assist of the match to his name)

The game ended with a 3-2 goal score in favor of the Raiders after a great second half performance from the team, realising their expectations of No match lost so far, top team on the league table, and remain a Predator to the Cocks. Decent defending by the Saigon Raider warrior Gary, earned him the valuable MOTM title amongs three other nominies; Hoggy, Chris, and Clemens. Hopefully the Raiders maintain this great performance into Saturday’s game against Sporting FC and subsequent games to achieve the Champions title again which they well deserving of.

Reported by yours truly,
Emmanuel.

Match notes from Dr. Fingers:

Nov 24. Fc fc

425 Nicoli miss

1330 crossbar
1632 goal
1725 miss
1957 miss
2523 pass out
2645 save
2727 goal
2850 miss
2954 back pass
3955 shot

Second half

30 goal
235 no penalty
258 gary kills someone
640 goal
748 goal
858 scuffle
1335 Stephan takes his pants down
1820 Goalie foul
3248 Hoggy tantrum
3400 Mirko wasting time
40+ miss Clem

Watch the replay