Analysis of football match played on 7 March 2009

Orange Ramblers 2-1 Social Frees

Orange Ramblers is the strongest team currently playing at the PFS home ground and its strength is increasing rapidly through exposure to state level competitions. A day earlier, they held team Medical (3rd in last year's Div. 1) to a scoreless draw. It is my believe that the commitment to the match with Medical resulted in Orange Ramblers fielding an understrength team against Social Frees thus allowing the Social Frees (perhaps the weakest team playing in PFS) to get away with a very flattering 2-1 defeat.

Social Frees tried (but failed) to achieve a 5-3-2 formation with players being advised to play wide and to utilise both wings to secure as many corner kicks as possible given that we had taller players to dominate the goal area. The Orange Ramblers tend to play a narrower game with the ball seldom remaining at the wings for long as it is played to centrally located players who were pretty good with short passes. Alas, Social Frees players continued to play a more central game and throughout the match, obtained only one corner which was badly taken eventually. I can only say that there is a natural bias that players possessing better footballing skills are assumed to be better at football strategy as well. Hence, it can be frustrating for a manager not skilled in football techniques to advise those with better skills. Was Sir Alex Ferguson (one of the best managers of all time) an excellent football player?