TDW Discovery Bay unlucky in 2019 Hong Kong Soccer Sevens Masters
HKFC CITI Soccer Sevens 2019 played on 17th, 18th and 19th May 2019 at the Hong Kong Football Club in Happy Valley.
TDW Discovery Bay (TDW DB) knew that an element of fortune would be needed if they were to retain their 2018 Masters Cup title. However, good fortune deserted them on just three occasions to concede a goal each time, which resulted in them just failing to reach the top.
In the group stage, two games were played on the Friday night. First was against Singapore Cricket Club Masters (SCCM), which finished at 2-2 after TDW DB had been winning 2-0. One of the 2 goals from SCCM was consequence of TDW DB goalkeeper being robbed of possession dribbling the ball in the middle of the pitch. The second match was a 2-0 win for TDW DB against Hong Kong Football Club Chairman’s Select. The remaining two group games were played on Saturday afternoon against the two ex-pro teams and the first of these was Nottingham Forrest Mobsters. TDW new that a win was a must in order to have a chance to advance in the Cup competition and the boys duly delivered with a well worked 1-0 win. This meant that a draw against Citi All Stars in the last game of the group would be enough to see TDW DB through to the Masters Cup semi-final. All was going well and it was TDW DB that had a couple of very good chances to sneak the win. However, with less than 2 minutes of play left in the game and scores tied at 0-0, the ball broke loose from tackles at the corner of the 18 yard box and instead of being booted clear into the stands with his first touch a TDW DB player tried to control and the ball bounced forward to a CITI player who collected and fell to ground very easily for a penalty to be given. The game finished 1-0 to Citi All Stars, meaning TDW DB came third in their group on one goal difference behind Nottingham Forrest Mobsters. Consequently TDW DB progressed to the Plate semi-final.
On Sunday morning TDW DB played Kowloon Cricket Club Veterans (KCCV) in the plate semi-final and triumphed convincingly 2-0 to progress to the plate final against Eleven FC. The first half of the final was dominated by TDW DB who had a number of chances to score but only got the one. Eleven FC came back into it and the last 4 minutes of second half they applied the pressure. DBFC were wasteful on keeping possession when they managed to win the ball back in this period and with less than 30 seconds to play disaster struck. TDW DB won back possession and instead of just clearing to safety and taking up valuable seconds the TDW player tried to make a pass which was intercepted at 20 yards and 2 passes and 3 touches later it was in the TDW DB net. The final then went to sudden death penalties and Eleven FC came out as Plate Champions with a 9-8 win.
A very decent performance by TDW DB, who only lost one of their six games in regulation time, and with a little bit of luck could have gone all the way. So this year TDW Discovery Bay had to settle for Plate runner-up medals.
Go to http://www.arounddb.com/news/tdw-discovery-bay-at-the-2019-hkfc-citi-soccer-sevens/ to see the on-line article for Around DB Magazine —- and watch out for June’s hard copy issue.