It's Not The Tactic
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It’s Not The Tactic
I learned an important lesson the other day.
The success we’ve seen at PanSa East F.C. here in American Samoa hasn’t tailed off at all. However, you can rest assured that it’s not because of any tactical acumen on my part.
I decided to take a risk in our match against media darlings Vaiala Tongan. I was so sure of potential victory that I put out a team of older players who haven’t looked quite as impressive in training.
Out went Toa Maile, and in when Han Jong-Sung, a 25-year-old Korean striker who has found himself occupying a fringe player role for an amateur team here in the islands.
Afa Leatualevao was replaced by Pela Malani. Corey Nortey, our great star, was replaced by Peyton Malani. And, yes, it was hard to tell the two Malanis apart.
And, well, it didn’t work.
We went down 2-0 after 10 minutes, and were down 3-1 at halftime. I finally brought Toa Maile on the pitch shortly after half time, in time for him to provide us with 2 goals en route to an amazing comeback.
Maile’s second goal was a beauty, an amazing goal scored as he snuck in behind the defense to level the score at 4. There wasn’t a winner in the books for us, but I’m perfectly happy with the draw.
However, we can clearly see here that it’s all about the players, not the tactics. We’ve been blessed with an early golden generation.
Dominance
We’ve been dominant in every other match. We’re undefeated after 7 matches, and the only match we haven’t won was that 4-4 raw. Our most recent victory was a 7-2 thrashing of Utulei.
It’s only looking up from here, too. The team’s weakness is defense, but we’ve got reinforcements coming in before next season begins. The biggest joy of amateur management is that you can pick up players for free. I’m not sure it will be enough to allow us to compete in the Oceania Champion’s League, but we’ll give it our best shot.
At the very least, it should be enough for me to catch the eye of some larger clubs in the region.
We’ve only got 20 matches overall in the season. We’ve got a 6 point lead over the second place Tafuna Jets at the moment, although they do have a game in hand on us. Our goal differential of 15 is easily the best in the country. Maile has 12 goals so far, easily the best in the league.
If we can keep him healthy, we should cruise to a title. If he is injured, I’m not sure there’s a plan B.