Hi Compass Lads,

An outstanding job today on our long-awaited win over Tubbies! Although the score was 0-1, there was little doubt that the better team won in a very competitive, hard-fought game that as exciting up to the very end.

Not surprisingly, Tubbies came out with their "A" squad. However, so did Compass. We were strong on all lines and came out warmed up and ready to rumble, which we did the entire match. What stood out today was our aggressive, fighting spirit, as everyone on the pitch scrapped hard for every ball. As a result, the Tubbies basically failed to get off a single real shot on our net the entire first half. Just 13 minutes into the game, Laurent put a nice cross to Cesar, who put a very clever back-header into the left corner of the Tubbies net.

Our biggest weakness was probably a lack of fitness, which increasingly began to show itself in the second half. Particularly in the last 20 minutes, we started to lose our shape, leading to some very tense moments as Tubbies began to press hard in our third of the pitch. This included a beautiful indirect kick by Danny, which arced from way out and bounced off our crossbar. In another nail-biter, Javi sprinted about 10 meters out of the box on an open ball to beat an onrushing Jose by a hair and save the day.

After the game, we decided that our "man of the match" was Lukas, who anchored the center defense with David and charged all over our third of the pitch like a madman, stopping Tubbies and stomping out attacks from every direction. In this role, he also freed up Hans to move into the right midfield position throughout the match--a change that seemed to throw the Tubbies off quite a bit as they experienced Hans' physical presence and speed in the midfield for a change.

I could say positive things about every one of you today as you all played your hearts out. I'll just settle for saying, Great job, Compass! I want to also give a special thank you to Robert, who ably served as a valuable assistant manager. I hope he'll keep doing that AND get back out on the pitch soon. Afterwards, Chris also reminded me that this is our third or fourth "clean sheet" in a row! Good job, defense!

A few other notes: I'm still working to get us another match next Sunday and will keep you upated. In the meantime, save May 11-12 on your calendars, as Tubbies Rob and I are tentatively planning the next Taichung Spring Cup Tournament for that weekend. This is a home tournament, guys, so let's plan on winning Ze Cup!

Go Compass!

Doug