Bad day at the office

Today is a bad day for me. We took part in the SMU professor's cup competition today. As usual, 2 teams were sent in, KACC and NSL. KACC did badly in this competition. We did not manage to qualify for the knock-out stages and we did not even manage to score a goal. There were several factors involved. They are not excuses, just things that contributed to our poor performance. We were outclassed by the opposition, there's no doubt about it but we could have done better if things went our way today. Firstly, we were not used to playing with the futsal ball with reduced bounce. It's more difficult to make passes and shots with the ball. Secondly, we were unlucky with the grouping as the teams were all pretty strong. Lastly, the biggest factor is that there were not enough people playing. We managed to play only one game with full strength and we played with one man down for the remaining matches. It was down to rigid rules and regulations and also my poor planning. It was exhausting playing with only 4 players and to make things worse, none of us were goalkeepers. We were, however, the crowd favourites as the spectators by the sides cheered for us. This is no consolation for me as I am pragmatic. I did not join the competition to win the crowd, my sole aim is to win matches. In contrast, NSL did a lot better than us, recording their first victory and playing well as a team. They showed more desire than us. It was a good showing from them though they did not manage to qualify. We learned something from every tournament that we play in. Some lessons are painful but hopefully, we will be able to recover from this setback and walk out a stronger team.