Powered by an inspired display from hardman Tjioe, 10-men ARFC dismissed the strong challenge of K-1-K 3-0 at Ahmad Ibrahim SS in front of 77,777 fans. This was ARFC’s 30th match and 23rd victory in 2009.
ARFC suffered huge blows when Toh (severely sick) and Tong (leg pain) pulled out just hours before the match, leaving ARFC with just 10 warriors. In the pre-match briefing, ARFC was urged to play intelligent possession football due to the shortage of warriors. Furthermore, Alvin was sick and Soon had just ran 20 km in the morning!!
ARFC started with this line-up:
Keeper: Dependable Jinzhong (captain)
Right-back: Hard-running Guoxiong
Sweeper: Uncompromising Edwin
Stopper: Combative Ron
Left-back: Influential Sebastian
Right-mid: Unpredictable Blackburn
Centre-mid: Hardman Tjioe
Centre-mid: Dynamic Soon
Left-mid: Speedy Hee
Striker: Powerful Alvin
In a vote of confidence to Jinzhong (for his poor display in the last match), he was made captain of the day. This served to motivate Jinzhong as he would later pull off several miraculous saves to preserve ARFC’s lead.
The match was just minutes old when ARFC opened the scoring. In a ping-pong tussle, Soon headed the ball over their defence and Alvin shrugged off his sick-bug to power clear and tone-joe the ball home for his 101st ARFC goal. This goal rattled the opponents who seemed deflated by this quick goal. 1-0
ARFC nearly went 2 goals up after Hee superbly trapped down a cross from Blackburn from the right and duly volleyed home ala Paul Scholes. However, his goal was correctly ruled out for a slight shove on the defender. Unlucky!!
ARFC was not to be denied in the 27th min. Again, Soon was the architect when he sent Alvin through on goal. Alvin rounded the keeper and was brought down by their keeper giving the referee an easy decision to point to the spot. Despite some antics by the opponent to distract him, Sebastian shut out all disturbances by coolly sending their keeper the wrong way for his 70th ARFC goal.
Sebastian’s goal also allowed him to move past the previous ARFC’s scoring great, Robin’s 69 goals, making Sebastian the 4th other ARFC warriors, the other 3 being Haron, Alvin and Blackburn, to move ahead of Robin.
ARFC suffered a scare when Tjioe was injured during a challenge. Thankfully, he soldiered on, showed his leadership qualities and came back in to help out ARFC. Big credit to him.
In the second half, ARFC merely held out and repelled all their attacks. Jinzhong came out tops yet again when he pushed a violent shot over the bar. World-class!! Simply world-class.
ARFC scored its 3rd goal in the 77th min to effectively killed off the game. Blackburn’s corner looked to be safely caught by their keeper until Hee showed Miroslav Klose-like quality and leaped like a fish by jumping about 1.77 metres above ground to head the ball into the unguarded net for his 68th ARFC goal. Superb!!Brilliant!! Fantastic!!
ARFC held out for a 3-0 victory which bolstered its chances of promotion to Div I. This was also a match where every warriors covered each other very well and all put in superlative efforts to secure this victory. This must be one of the best matches that ARFC ever played.
These are the performance comments of ARFC:
Jinzhong – Truly a captain’s display. Showed very safe-handling and produced several world-class saves to secure a clean sheet yet again. Very Neville Southall-like performance.
Guoxiong – Yet another superb display at right back. Gave opponents no chance at all with his super tackles and recovery. Also, made some surging runs down the right flank. Played like Cafu and Daniel Alves.
Edwin – Marshalled defence very well with his clever interceptions and off-side traps. Played like Alan Hansen.
Ron – Very Carragher-like display with his incessant closing down of opponents whenever they are near him.
Sebastian – Usual display but crucial in organizing the midfield with his shoutings from defence. Cool penalty scored.
Hee – Justified his Most Improved Player with yet another display. Lent great support to Alvin who is lone striker, and also aided Sebastian greatly in defence. Wonderful headed goal which is usually scored by Toh. With this performance, even our very own Khim, who is recognized by every ARFC warrior to be the most complete footballer ever to don an ARFC jersey, would have problems dislodging Hee from the left-midfield position.
Blackburn – Cool display and came out with a great corner scored by Hee.
Soon – Yet another Mascherano-like performance despite his 20 km run in the morning. The opponents could not cope with his tireless running. Re-entered the field after coming down with cramps early in the 2nd half. Great sacrifice for the team.
Tjioe – This must be the BEST performance for him in an ARFC shirt and reminded everyone what Tjioe was during his early ARFC career. His power and strength completed dominated the entire midfield but what was more heartening was that he soldiered on despite taking some heavy knocks at his ankle. This is the spirit that every ARFC warrior should aspire for. A performance that reminded everyone of a certain Roy Keane or Bryan Robson.
Alvin – Whenever he chased after the loose balls played to him, the defenders seemed to fear him. Despite not feeling well, Alvin came up with the goods and if he can produce similar performances by going after the balls, he would conjure up more goals and assists for ARFC. Very Torres-like performance.
Also, for the first time in history, Sebastian did not name his personal Man-of-the-Match. Instead, he polled all 10 warriors in the match and these are their choices:
Warrior Their choice
Jinzhong Tjioe
Guoxiong Soon
Sebastian Tjioe
Edwin Tjioe
Ron Tjioe
Soon Jinzhong
Tjioe Ron
Blackburn Soon
Hee Soon
Alvin Ron
So, the collective ARFC Man-of-the-Match is Tjioe with 4 votes which is very very logical and good choice.
But I also want to add that the other 3 choices, Soon, Ron and Jinzhong, are also good candidates for this award as they also put up fantastic displays!!
No comments:
Post a Comment