My very first semi-finals I've been to in my soccer career.
My very first time entering Jalan Besar Stadium.
My very first time crying for a match that I did not play.

Before having lunch, we watched a video. A summation of mainly the year2's journey thus far. Tho we were not part of it, but we were definitely touched by all who made it possible for us to come so far. Namely our coach and the teachers-in-charge. Being reminded that coach's stay in our team is dependent on today's match. We were even more determined that we had to win!

In that changing room, we roared. We promised to play our v best. We promised to never give up. Shouting- FINALS, HERE WE COME! Even out at the field, we still had that phrase ringing in our ears. Again and again, we screamed we roared.

SA being always in our half, posed us great trouble. By half time, we barely had even 1 scoring chance. Watching the players lie flat on the pitch, I thought it is going to be a replay of VJ's match. They went in, played even better than the first half. Many shed blood, literally! Yet quickly brushing the blood on their faces away, afraid that the referee would send them out. Many sprained their ankle, limping away in the field chasing after the ball. When coach wanted to sub them out, their argued so badly just to be able to continue playing.

By the whistle that we termed heavenly, the referee told us we were given 10-10 extra time. This would mean our bleeding, injured players had to carry on defending for another 20 min. This time round SA was still hyped up and always trying to score. But for every ball that SA shot, there was a meridian body to block it.

The whistle blew. SA cheered. MJ kept slient. Penalty shootout, something that we knew we had a disadvantage over SA. One by one. They shot. Keepers dived. 3-4

We lost.
We lost our chance to enter finals.
We lost our team target.
We were so close, so close.

RIJC vs MJC, 22nd May, Jalan Besar Stadium.