For the first time in many months, ARFC played a 7 pm match on a Sunday against Yellow Submarine at the magnificent artificial pitch at Tampines SAFRA. Despite an unusual playing time on a Sunday for ARFC, ARFC still managed to thrash Yellow Submarine 7-2 after twice falling behind. As usual, the 77,777 fans included Anna and Tracie, beau of Elvis and Guoxiong respectively. Toh’s wife, son (Gerrard) and siblings also turned up to lend their support. Gerrard was subsequently treated to a match of goals delight served up by ARFC.
ARFC started with this line-up:
Keeper: Dependable Jinzhong
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Astute-reading Elvis
Stopper: Unpredictable Blackburn
Left-back: Hardworking Tong
Right-mid: Hardman Tjioe
Centre-mid: Dynamic Soon (Captian)
Centre-mid: Influential Sebastian
Left-mid: Sublime Khim
Striker: ARFC Scoring Legend Haron
Striker: Powerful Alvin
Subs are:
Speedy Hee
Mean-machine Hock
Towering Toh (late)
ARFC was strangely subdued in the opening minutes and was subjected to a barrage of shots by the opponents who were clearly determined to avenge their previous 7-0 thrashing by ARFC. Thankfully, Jinzhong came to the rescue with some superb saves.
However, ARFC did not wake up and it was no surprise that it fell behind in the 7th min after a poor decision by the lousy referee who failed to spot an off-side. 0-1.
Falling behind and with boos raining down by the fans, ARFC then woke up and played some delightful football. 7 mins later, ARFC equalized. Hock, who just came on for Tjioe, hit a delightful ball to Haron who ran into the box and proceeded to lash home that gave their keeper no chance at all for his 138th ARFC goal. Wonderful shot from a scoring legend. 1-1.
ARFC again fell behind. 1-2.
ARFC did not lose heart and continued to chase for an equalizing goal. Hock and Haron again combined to find Khim who showed some mesmerising footwork just at the edge of the penalty box and volleyed home with his left foot that arched over their keeper for his 39th ARFC goal. 2-2.
First half’s score stayed at 2-2.
Within minutes of the re-start, ARFC took the lead for the very first time. Tong, who was so impressive throughout, combined with Khim to find Alvin down the left flank. Accelerating away, Alvin powered into the box and thumped home with his outside right foot for his 86th ARFC goal. 3-2.
ARFC extended its lead in the 57th min. Hock’s long cross from the right eluded everybody and the ball seemed to be headed out for a goal-kick. But with Hee around, there is never a case of lost cause as he utilized his world-renowned speed to retrieve the ball and played to Khim. Looking up, Khim chipped the ball in and Alvin outjumped everybody ala Klose to head home his 87th ARFC goal. Wonderful goal with world-class switches from right to left and to goal. 4-2.
7 mins later, Alvin completed his hat-trick after some clever footwork from Haron who eluded 2 defenders and hit a slide-rule through pass to Alvin who needed no second invitation to shoot past their despairing keeper for his 88th ARFC goal. 5-2
Alvin’s 11th hat-trick for ARFC also enabled him to surpass the previous 10 hat-tricks held by Robin. However, Alvin’s total goals of 35 from hat-tricks is still behind Robin’s record of 39 goals from hat-trick.
In the 77th min came the goal of the match. Guoxiong showed everybody why he is so highly regarded by all when he embarked on a 87-metre lung-busting run ala Cafu from his right-back position, played a clever one-two with Hock beat their left-back at the bye-line and squared the ball across to Haron. Haron’s touch appeared a little too heavy as the ball spun up into the air. With his back to goal, Haron executed a bicycle kick ala Torres and the ball beat their keeper much to the whole world’s delight. Great goal and it was his 139th ARFC goal. 6-2
ARFC was not done and scored with virtually the last kick of the match. Blackburn, who was put clean through, was so unselfish as he clipped the ball over to Soon who came rushing into the box. With a touch that killed the ball, Soon side-footed it past their keeper for his 14th ARFC goal and capped off a good night since it is the first time that he is captaining ARFC. 7-2
Again, this was a match where every ARFC warrior played extremely well. ARFC did not lose heart after twice falling behind and that speaks volume about its determination, grit and team-work.
My choice for Man-of-the-Match goes to Tong for his very impressive outing at left-back, though Hock, Khim and Haron came very close.
With this victory, ARFC maintained its 100% record with a perfect 10 score in 2009. ARFC is also still unbeaten at Tampines SAFRA. As for the results against Yellow Submarine, we had played them 5 times (including tonight) as follows:
Drew 4-4
Won 2-1
Won 4-3
Won 7-0
Won 7-2.
No comments:
Post a Comment