Match Report: Game 1 - Vadocz strike enough to seal 3 points for Kitchee in Season Opener

Kitchee kicked-off the defence of their Premier League title on Friday night with a valuable 3 points against arch-rivals, and last season’s runners-up, Eastern.  

Under the floodlights at Mong Kok stadium, in front of just under 4400 eager fans, the game failed to reach the heights of last season’s epic finale and a sole goal from Krisztian Vadocz was enough to give Kitchee the win. However, in a league where 1 or 2 points can determine where the title ends up, the Bluewaves will be delighted to have put some clear daylight between themselves and their closest challengers at such an early stage. 

Angry Boundary Street regulars, Owen Ford and Charlie Markillie, bring us their review of the match.

Chu keeps faith in tried and tested system

Kitchee manager, Alex Chu, kept the faith in the system that served him so well last year and Kitchee lined up in a 3-4-3 formation.  

The starting 11 was perhaps not quite as expected, with the surprise exclusion of both the player of the year and golden boot winner from last season, Fernando and Sandro. 

However, the stage was well set for Lucas Silva to make his eagerly anticipated competitive debut, with Alex and Matt Lam providing the bruising Brazilian bruiser with support upfront.  The midfield was anchored by Huang Yang and Krisztian Vadocz, with Jared Lum and Lam Zhi Gin on the wings.

In defence, Dani, Helio and Kim BJ provided protection to veteran 'keeper, Kitchee Legend, Wang Zheng Pang. 

One is enough for Kitchee but it could have been more

In what was a much closer game than many fans predicted, just one goal was enough for Kitchee to seal three points against Eastern. 

Both teams knew, even at this early stage of the season, that this match could turn out to be the title decider and this lead to a very lively start to the match, with plenty of hard tackles and fouls in the the early stages of the game. However, the ref was in unforgiving mood and did hesitate to break out the yellow cards quick and early with Bai He being booked for the Easterners after just 4 minutes for a foul on Vadocz. 

The tension between the two teams continued to build throughout the initial exchanges and this seemed to come to a head after 17 minutes.  After Lam Zhi Gin had been fouled by Ch Lee, Lucas picked up the ball and tried to play the advantage. With the Brazilian clean through on goal and a fantastic opportunity one-on-one to get off the mark for Kitchee, the referee decided to pull pull play back and award a free-kick to Eastern. This decision seemed to bemuse most in the stadium and resulted in Lam Zhi Gin being booked for his protestations but not before there was a scuffle involving a number of players from both sides. 

Despite this excitement, there was not a large number of clear chances for either team in the first half - the best opportunity probably being a long range effort by Alex from about 20 yards out which the Kitchee striker saw graze off the top of the cross bar. Just before half time, Lucas thought he had got his debut goal after being put in by Vadocz but this was correctly ruled out for offside. 

Szeto Man Chun's first half time team talk as Eastern Coach seemed to have fired up his steeds and after the break Lo Kong Wai thought he had put the Long Lions ahead, after good work by Michele Lugo on the wing. However, the strike was ruled out much to the relief of the large majority of the watching supporters.  

With nearly 70 minutes on the clock, coach Alex Chu started to prepare Fernando in order to inject a bit more pace into what was becoming more of an open game. However, the Brazilian was told to sit back down, after Vadocz took advantage of a lucky ricochet from a Alex's pass to tuck the ball past Hong Kong goalkeeper Yap Hung Fai and give the Bluewaves the lead. 

With the one goal advantage in the bag, Kitchee managed to see the game out with Eastern continuing to offer very little upfront. In fact, with good chances from substitute Sandro, Kitchee seemed more likely to add to their goal tally than Eastern did to add an equaliser. 

What have we learnt?

With the match coming so early in the season, it is perhaps difficult to draw any firm conclusions for the season ahead. 

However, its clear that Kitchee will continue to employ the same mentality as last season and fans will be very happy with some of the football that was played on the night. The team worked hard and the back 3 with Vadocz acting as the holding midfielder looked solid and hard to break down. 

The main issue seemed to be taking the chances that came our way. This begs the question why Kitchee's player of last season, Fernando Pedreira, was not included at all. At times in the second half the game was crying out for his quality. Its unclear whether or not he had a pre-season niggle or whether Alex Chu wanted to experiment with some different options, but we would expect to see him included for round 2 against Dreams FC. 

Big night for Lucas in difficult circumstances

Lucas made a solid start to his Kitchee career.  Whilst he failed to take a couple of clear chances to score, he looked dangerous throughout and seemed to cause Eastern's backline a headache continuously throughout the game.

After the match, Lucas himself announced that his brother had died the day before the game. For him to play so well and show such strength in amazingly difficult circumstances really does testify to the character of the player. Our thoughts go out to Lucas Silva and his family and we hope to continue to see him out on the pitch doing what he does best!

What about Eastern?

As for Eastern they did not have any real stand out players, James McKee seemed to once again be the man who was going to turn the game in their favour with his darting runs forward. He didn't get many clear chances on goal but it looked as if he wasn't getting enough service from his team mates. 

Which leads me onto the much anticipated return of Michelle Lugo! At times it looked as if he had the potential to change the game and had two good chances in the first half but in truth he never really got going. In all fairness to the Brazilian he played the game in a good spirit, even resisting the urge to get involved in the scuffle that broke out after the Lam Zhi Gin incident, on an occasion where the majority of Kitchee fans wanted to remind him of his petulant behaviour last season.

Final Thoughts

Kitchee deserved to take all three points on the night but won't be happy that they didn't take all the chances that came their way and failed to kill the game off.  Vadocz's goal was enough on this occasion on what was an off-night for Eastern but with trickier challenges lying ahead in the ACL, Alex Chu will hope that his strikers get their "eye in" early on. 

However, off the ball they looked very well drilled and well managed, the team looked in good shape and seemed to be very fit - this really showed in the last 10 minutes.  The team seems to have continued their form from the backend of last season and the club seems to be in a good place for what will hopefully be a fantastic year for the club

Attendance: 4397

Next match: 10th of September 5:30 Vs dreams gallery, Mong Kok stadium.