Marceles Junior, a team rubbing shoulders with us on the podium and what a day to be lacking in players. Today was a day where our team spirit and perseverance alone was not enough to bring us back after conceding.  Yet again we have to ponder why we are always making things difficult for ourselves.

We started off in typical Al Caliph fashion. Balls were played along the ground and our communication was good. Zaf and Firous dominated the midfield and sprayed passes with ease to the wingers and forwards. Our defense was solid and things were looking great for us. We had presentable chances with shots going just high and wide of the posts. In fact their only way of stopping us in midfield was with persistent fouling.

Call it bad luck or a wrong decision, but Al Caliph were unfortunate to not score the first goal.

A ferocious free kick from outside the box was taken by Zi Jian, and it proved to be to hot for the opponent goalkeeper to handle and Tyrus was there to tap it in. As he was about to do a "Ryan Giggs against Arsenal 1999 Fa cup semi-final" celebration, the referee blew his whistle, declaring him offside, and denied him the chance to show his non-existent chest hair.

We continued to maintain our tempo, pressed on in attack and held steady in defense.

Just as we about to go into the break, the opponents managed to pull one against us after Anwar let a ball from a corner kick slip through his fingers and their forward was there to capitalise on a rare error.

We knew from past experiences that we could come back and win the game, however,this was not to be.

Early into the second half, our communication broke down and this led to many gaps in midfield and defense where the opposing team exploited and attacked endlessly. Our slip-ups proved to be calamitous as their second goal was scored by their left midfielder "Spectacles guy", as quoted by ZJ,  who took a shot from outside the box. Anwar took a step off his line just as the opponent was about to take his shot. Lucky for "spectacles guy" and unlucky for our goalkeeper, the shot was not struck cleanly and this led to flight of the ball being misjudged and it ended up in the back of the net.

Another highlight would be when our left back Zul, managed to pull off a hair raising tackle in the penalty box that would have otherwise left us in a three goal deficit. After losing out to a high ball, and the attacker was en route to our goal, Zul chased him into the box and slid in at the perfect time to nick the ball from between the forward's legs and out for a corner kick.

We had several good chances in the second half, one of which was where Yat beat two players on the left side of the penalty box and took a powerful shot which went just wide of the right post. Soon after our attacking play was dry and everyone found it hard to hold our heads up.

Al Caliph struggled to find our way back into the game and eventually the final whistle, which sounded like a wordless reprimand for our poor performance, was blown.

We may have lost this game but i strongly believe that the Al Caliph team spirit is strong enough to win any team and that Marceles Junior won't be so lucky the next time around.

3, 2, 1, CALIPH!!!!!!!!!!! (Yes u may rest your hands on my back)