The Match of Two Winners

There are football matches which have one winner. And then there are those matches, where there are two winners.

The latter was certainly the case on Pangkor Island, when the students met their hotel staff during the first part of the Christmas trip. Such was the friendly atmosphere during and after the match, that everybody was smiling long after the final whistle. Although the students won the match 1-0, the feeling was all oneness between the two teams.

In the match the students got off to a good start, when Josef broke through the opponent’s defence. The finishing was clinical: 1-0.

After that only luck or football’s goddesses willingness to smile at them kept the students goal untouched. Prabhakar made two world-class saves and like any good goalie had the luck on his side, when the hotel staff hit the woodwork twice.

Especially the second half was mainly one-way traffic. The hotel people kept on attacking and attacking, but the students gutsy, well-organised performance was good enough to keep a clean sheet. It was a case of western world’s efficiency versus Malaysian flair. The hotel staff’s dominance of possession was clear but they failed to score despite a number of chances.

Such was the skill of the home team that they seemed to think that they can allow the other team to be leading and still catch them in the end. But that is not quite the case if your opponent puts at least six bodies in their own penalty box and are ready to tough it out. Because that’s what it came down to.

Not that the students didn’t have a number of goal scoring chances themselves. In the hotel staff’s team no one seemed to be too bothered about defending so the students created quite a few chances on the break.

After the final whistle blew the score had somehow managed to remain at 1-0 despite all the goal scoring opportunities.

And the hotel staff were able to console themselves, if they needed any consolation, with the fact that they had won the first match 3-1 and hence on aggregate 3-2.