Redemption

After a week of poor showing, today I redeemed myself by putting a brilliant performance in HKFC training. My passing was often accurate, I made some good clearances as a defender and made some good movement to get my team-mate and myself into space. One thing that I will have to work on is shooting. I got myself into good positions but missed the goal.

Week of Sorrow

I apologise for not publishing any blog posts recently, but there wasn't really much good news to share. This week was mostly a week of disappointment as my football skills seemed to have dropped. Of course it's hopefully just form, but at HKFC trainings, the game against Chong Gene Hang which we lost 2-0 and even when playing on the beach, my touch and passing seemed poor and I felt like I could do better. Therefore, I am trying to rest as much as possible as the cause might be because of fatigue. I do hope so, so that when I do recover, I will get even better.


By the way, I also wanted to say that today was my 16th birthday!

South Island School 1-1 St. Joseph's

On a beautiful day for sports, a close game against St. Joseph's ended 1-1.  We did not lose this time and gave another good fight, but it was unfortunate that we could not grab a win. I played as a centre-back and gave a solid performance. Making vital clearances with my head, playing aggressively against dribbling attackers and even giving a brilliant long through ball to the right winger. But there was nothing we could about the early goal that they had scored.

It had been about ten minutes in the game and we were playing confidently and dominated in possession. We passed the ball around, weren't troubled in defence and had the upper hand. But a 30 metres half-volley goal by the other team really was a blow to us. It may have been lucky but you couldn't deny that it was a great shot. There was nothing we could have done to stop the goal. But that's football for you.

The goal did demotivated us at first, but we kept fighting and in the second half we were rewarded a goal after a headed pass was converted with a volley. We weren't finished yet though, we kept pushing and going for the goal and had a glorious opportunity when one of my team mates tried for a long shot after the keeper came up which just skimmed the post. I thought that was the one last opportunity and that we blew it. After that shot, I thought it was unfair that the game was going to end 1-1. But, by the end of the game we could have considered ourselves lucky to have drawn since the opposition hit the crossbar from a one on one situation and at another moment the keeper had to scramble to get the ball while three attackers tried to score from close range. The dying minutes of the game were surely an eventful one.

Although we were lucky not have conceded a goal at times, it was disappointing that we didn't win especially with all the corners we had. I believed that we were bound to convert at least one of them but it never happened. The chances of making it out of the group stage is becoming very slim now, but we will keep working hard to win our remaining games.

First Girls' Game

The early morning wake ups continued as I went to the HKFC to coach the U-12/U-14 Girls' team once again. The session was good but one thing I need to do is make sure they are always concentrating. I must make sure that they don't fool around or talk to each and make sure they focus and work their hardest during training. But, for some of them I didn't want to push them too hard since we had a game later on in the day.

At around 3:30pm, there was a game between the U-14 HKFC Girls' team and the U-14 Canadian International School Girls' team. I obviously went as a coach and tried to help them out by giving advice before and at half-time of the game as well as shouting a lot during the game. The team worked very hard and played brilliantly winning 4-2. Of course, it's a development league and the main aim is to develop the players rather than winning games, but it was a great feeling winning my first game as a coach nonetheless. Not only was it the first game I was involved in as a coach, it was also the first game in the U-14 HKFC Girls' history!

5:00 AM

I was worried about being tired later on today after waking up early at 5:00 am for a charity walk. But I ended up doing fine today since I slept quite well last night. Before my training, I started with the coaching as normal once again and then went on to start the session. At first, I wasn't quite warmed up since I just came from the coaching and therefore felt a little nervous doing the passing and overlapping drills. At first, I might not have done well, but later on in the game involving two four goals on four different sides and you have to defend two of them and score in either of the other two, I did much better. I played some good passes and my awareness wasn't too bad. Later on, we finished with a game and although I had a few good moments, I didn't receive the ball as much as I wanted to.

Athletics Day

Today was athletics day for school for the Year 12 and 13. Although it was nice to see my 100m time (14.00 seconds), 400 m time (1:11 minutes), and high jump result (1.20 m), (yes, all those results are quite woeful) it was a shame not to have been able to do the 1500m run. The 1500m run is my best event and I was getting ready for it but we couldn't do it due to running out of time. I will be doing it on the finals day where there's the whole school competing so at least that's quite good.

I've got to sleep soon now because I have to wake up at 5:00 am for a charity walk. It is going to be absolutely horrible tomorrow since I'll be tired in school and for football.

Training and mini game

School training actually went off to a bad start because we actually didn't have a bus to get us there. So we had to all take taxis as well as missing quite a chunk of the training. The training ended up being a game with only three touches and at least it was quite fun.

Before going off to the HKFC, we actually played a friendly game with this other school. I thought it would be quite fun so I played but left midway through since it wasn't serious and I needed to save energy for the HKFC training.

Then, the HKFC training was mostly small sided games which I did pretty well on picking out players to pass and even scored a first time left foot shot.

Morning skill work

Did some skill work for football this morning, going down to the park rather than the beach. I did some different juggling, passing, controlling and passing the ball at an angle drills and I actually did better than I expected to do.

South Island School 0-1 Ying Wa, HKFC 5-0 Happy Valley

I had a bad start to a tiring day by first losing to Ying Wa 1-0 for school but then later getting better by beating Happy Valley 5-0 with the HKFC.

It was a real shame to have lost to Ying Wa, the team that beat us 6-0 last time, because we worked hard and gave them a tough game. As a centre-back, I played solidly making lots of heading clearances and overall being strong in defence. It was a very close game until they scored late from a scramble. You could tell that we played well since they started to waste time and play more defensively after their goal. Although we played well, it was particularly disappointing not have won a game which could have easily gone either way after having previous poor meetings with them.

After the game and the girls' coaching at the HKFC, there was my 2nd game of the day against a strong opponent, Happy Valley, who were undefeated before the game. Despite a disappointing first half, ending 0-0, we played some magnificent passing and moving football in the 2nd half and scored five goals. I came on as a substitute as a right-back for about thirty minutes and I gave a good cameo. It was in fact quite similar to the school game in that I made lots of vital headers and also tackled the ball away from the winger aggressively. Not once, did they trouble from my side.

On top of all the games I've played, I did some coaching yesterday and today. So far, it's been going very well and I'm starting to take more of an initiative and leading more.

Two games tomorrow

I have two competitive games tomorrow. One against Ying Wa for school at 2:30pm and another against Happy Valley for my club at 8:30pm. On top of this, I've got to do the coaching in between the two games. It will therefore be a very tiring day tomorrow and I therefore want to get as much sleep as possible tonight.

Passing

Both training for school and the HKFC went well as my passing was very well done. I played mostly easy short passes, but it was good in that my passing rate was very high. My movement and awareness around the ball was good and I was aggressive when tackling. Overall, it was a good performance but what I can improve on would be to not hesitate at times when retaining the ball and to always focus in order to not make careless passes.

Technique

Went to the gym today but trained differently by trying to use lighter weights but lifting at a much slower rate. My father pointed out that my technique was bad and therefore I focused more on technique and lifted slowly. Although the weight were lighter, the session was incredibly tiring as it also requires more endurance yet it is much healthier for my body as well.

Rest

After waking up early on Saturday morning after sleeping late after a football game on Friday evening, I felt quite tired this weekend. I therefore took a bit of a rest and didn't do any intense training. I use my free time doing homework and thinking about how to coach the girls' team.

Coaching

I had a game on Friday for the HKFC, my first this season, and it went by smoothly as we won 8-0 against Northern District. I played in my usual position at right-back and played the whole of the second half. I would say my performance wasn't spectacular but solid. Most of my passes were accurate  as I tried to play simple ones such as to the right winger back or back in the middle to the central midfielders or centre-back. I made a couple of good crosses and my defence wasn't bad although there was little to do. In all, it was a good easy game.

The big thing recently for me though is that I started to coach the U-12/U-14 HKFC girls' team. It has been a good and new experience so far. Obviously, it's only the beginning so I've still got to learn the names of the players and so on but I am aiming this season to inspire them to win rather than just to play around. It's a newly created team and therefore there's a lot of potential. It's a very exciting time for myself right now because I can work and help create a good team while enjoying the beautiful game.

Coach

Training yesterday went well but I got slightly frustrated at times because last training session, my passing was quite good but my defending was sometimes poor but this time it was the opposite with attackers barely being able to pass me but at the same time losing the ball too easily.

The good news though is that the HKFC have accepted me to come this Friday to assist the coaching of the girls' team. Of course it is not official yet, but it is one step closer.

Book

Other than doing a lot of training over the weekend such as playing football on the beach, going to the gym and doing a record distance 15km run, I've also decided to create a book full of different football drills that I have created. Inspired by the coaches in Blackburn Rovers, I've thought about different drills that can work on different parts of football and write them down in the book. To start with, it will be just a book to remind of the different drills, but in the long run it might turn out to be successful. On top of this, I've also decided to apply to become the assistant coach of the newly created HKFC girls' U-12 and U-14 team. Again inspired by Blackburn, I think it would be a great experience for me to start coaching at a young age and who knows, maybe one day I become a professional coach. Of course, I still have to wait to see if I can obtain this role though.