Playing its first league match in the new season, ARFC was quickly brought down to earth after suffering a 4-1 defeat by Team BI, a team that was previously champions of the ESPZEN League and also boasted many NFL players. Hence, it was no shame at all in the defeat.
After having crowned champions and smashing all records in the previous season when ARFC was playing in the Div III, a large crowd was expected to witness how ARFC would fare in the Div II. Furthermore, Damian has returned from his 7-year attachment at Leeds United for a holiday and was eager to show all and sundry what he had learnt. Hence, a large crowd of 117,777 fans turned up.
ARFC started with this line-up:
Keeper: Dependable Jinzhong
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Towering Toh
Stopper: Uncompromising Edwin
Left-back: Astute-reading sweeper Elvis
Right-mid: Hardman Tjioe
Centre-mid: Dynamic Soon
Centre-mid: Influential Sebastian
Left-mid: Hardworking Tong
Striker: ARFC scoring legend Haron
Striker: Powerful Alvin
Subs:
Unpredictable Blackburn
Speedy Hee
Marauding Boon
Intimidating Damian
From the start, it was clear that Team BI was indeed a good team with its superb passing and movement. ARFC was unable to get into the match and only managed to hold out.
In the 27th min, ARFC conceded a goal. 0-1.
Controversy erupted in the 37th min. The ball was pumped down the left flank and looked like it had crossed the line before their left-winger crossed the ball back into our penalty box. However, the referee incorrectly ruled play on and their striker duly thumped home their second goal. 0-2. Immediately, almost all warriors surrounded the referee as he was almost at the half-way line and yet could still say the ball was still in play. Despite so, his decision remained and ARFC was 2 down at half-time.
A half-time pep-talk by Haron appeared to have woken every warrior up and ARFC began to play so much better and threatened to score.
However, disaster struck in the 57th min after a defensive error. 0-3.
Nevertheless, ARFC did not give up and got its just rewards in the 67th min. Sebastian hit a high direct ball over their defence and after Soon pressured their defender, the ball fell kindly to Alvin who shouted Soon to let him have a shot. With his outside foot, Alvin scored his 91st ARFC goal. 1-3
Alvin could have scored his second goal 7 mins later but after shrugging off their sweeper and facing their keeper one-on-one, his shot was deflected away by their keeper for a corner.
ARFC then made a defensive error to concede the 4th goal to them. 1-4 is the final score.
Really, it was no shame to have lost to this team which is clearly superior in almost every department. In fact, this team should be crowned champions in Div II easily. It has been a long time since ARFC was totally outplayed. For this match, only Guoxiong and Hee came away with credit of note.
This is ARFC’s 50th defeat in 260 matches.
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