Playing again at Deyi SS, ARFC won its 3rd tournament match out of 4 matches against Easteroids in front of 77,777 fans including Su and Afiqah, Haron’s wife and daughter.
Bouyed and inspired by MINDEF’s announcement for the new retirement age, both SAF regulars Hock and Jeffrey turned up for this tournament for the 1st time.
ARFC started with this line-up:
Keeper: Dependable Jinzhong
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Astute-reading Elvis
Stopper: Towering Toh
Left-back: Unpredictable Blackburn
Right-mid: Dynamic Soon
Centre-mid: Hardman Tjioe
Centre-mid: Influential Sebastian
Left-mid: Speedy Hee
Striker: ARFC scoring legend Haron
Striker: Powerful Alvin (captain)
Subs:
Marauding Boon
Mean-machine Hock
Fearless Jeffrey
Hardworking Tong
ARFC drew first blood just mins from the start. A High ball was headed over their defence and goalwards and Haron showed great awareness by moving up from off-side position but did not go for the ball. Tjioe read the move perfectly and moved in from deep and probably put off by Tjioe’s powerful physical presence, their keeper and defender misjudged the flight of the ball which bounced over them. Tjioe managed to get ahead of their covering defender and nicked the ball into the empty net for his 47th ARFC goal. 1-0.
ARFC doubled its lead just mins later. Hee was fouled at the left and Sebastian’s free-kick was met powerfully by Toh. Their keeper managed to keep the ball out by parrying the header but Haron again displayed his world-class awareness by sliding the ball home before anybody can react for his 144th ARFC goal. 2-0
In the 17th min, Guoxiong overlapped, played a one-two with Haron and sprinted clear on the right flank. Seeing Alvin unmarked, Guoxiong squared the ball across goal but Alvin inexplicably side-footed the ball wide!! This miss mirrored Haron’s miss from last week from an almost identical position!!
ARFC continued its relentless pressure and got its 3rd goal in the 20th min. Sebastian played a ball from central area and Haron passed to Alvin. Hearing a shout from Tong, who had just come on for Hee (injured), Alvin rolled the ball perfectly into the path of Tong who powered a beautiful shot that arched over their keeper for his 24th ARFC goal. 3-0.
With a 3-goal lead, Sebastian made 3 substitutions – Boon for Guoxiong, Hock for Tjioe and Jeffrey for Haron.
In the 2nd half, ARFC turned complacent and allowed the opponent to pull a goal back. 1-3
In the 57th min, ARFC nearly scored its 4th goal after very neat play by Hee. With everybody beaten and just an empty net, Haron repeated his horrendous miss last week by placing the ball over the bar much to the chagrin of his wife and daughter!!
ARFC could have scored more goals but all chances were wasted.
Man-of-the-match has to be Blackburn who never gave their right side players any chance at all, though Haron, Toh and Tjioe did very well too.
Special credit too for the good attendance of 15 warriors…..
No comments:
Post a Comment