Playing in his “official first match” for ARFC, Ismail produced a
delicious Man-of-the-Match heroics to inspire ARFC to a commanding 2-0 victory
over Brazilian Boys.
Credit to Alvin for turning up to support despite his serious
ankle injury.
ARFC only started with 10 warriors in this line-up:
Keeper - Commanding Ismail
Right-back - Indra
Sweeper - Towering Toh
Stopper - Dependable Jinzhong
Left-back - Unbeatable Darren
Left-mid - Talisman Derrick
Centre-mid - Wonder Wayne
Centre-mid - Dynamic Soon
Right-mid - Nippy Kenny
Striker - ARFC Scoring Legend Haron (captain)
Subs:
Influential Sebastian (late)
Speedy Hee (late)
Astute-reading sweeper Elvis (late)
Unpredictable Blackburn (still in toilet when match started)
Absent:
Combative Ron
Marauding Guoxiong
Resolute Jasper
Skillful Weilit
Steely Tze Ern
Powerful Alvin
Impeccable How Meng
Hard-man Tjioe
Sublime Khim
Booming Boon
Jiawei
Playing with just 10 warriors,
ARFC was under immerse pressure and had to be indebted to Ismail for preventing
ARFC from falling behind. With just 777 seconds gone, Ismail got down sharply
to his right ala Pepe Reina to turn their low shot away for a corner. Superb!
Ismail repeated his save but
this time round, he got down to his left to again parry the ball away. Fantastic!
Hee then came on as left
midfielder. Shortly after, Wayne made way for Sebastian.
ARFC then edged in front. Soon
anticipated brilliantly and stole the ball away from the opponent. He passed
the ball down to Haron who then flicked a grounder down the right flank for
Kenny to run in. Kenny looked up and chipped a gem of a ball to the middle of
the 6-yard box. Derrick, playing before his knee surgery, rose like a salmon to
nod the ball in ala Miroslav Klose for his 77th ARFC goal.
1-0 and this was ARFC’s 1600th
goal in its 24-year history.
ARFC doubled its lead with yet
another assist from Kenny. Intercepting a ball at the left, Kenny played in a
reverse pass for Wayne to break their off-side trap. Wayne showed unparrelled
composure to take the ball round their keeper before slotting the ball home
into the empty net for his 12th ARFC goal. 2-0
ARFC was then denied a clear
penalty when Hee, well, sped clear of their right-back who then tripped Hee in
the box. Unbelievably, the referee failed to spot the foul and instead awarded
a foul against Hee!!!
In the 2nd half,
justice was served when Hee was hacked down in the box. Unfortunately, Jinzhong
could not break his goal-scoring duck when his ferocious shot landed into row
ZZZ.
By now, ARFC was in total
command and control. First, Toh headed Blackburn’s corner against the post. Toh
then just narrowly failed to connect with another Blackburn’s corner.
Upfront, Kenny, Derrick, Hee,
Wayne, Haron and Blackburn were causing too much problems and their defence was
totally at seas.
Wayne was then brutally brought
down and had to leave the pitch to standing applause from the banglas at the
construction site.
At times, the play from left to
right was really a joy to watch. Blackburn/Wayne would switch from left to
right for Hee who would in turn laid the ball back for either Haron, Kenny or
Derrick in the middle.
From such moves, Kenny then
thrice fired wide while Haron just missed Kenny’s pass by inches.
However, it was not just all
attacking play that caught the eye.
Ismail was quickest to dash out
to smoother 2 low balls, while Darren hacked the ball off the line when Ismail
was finally beaten.
Ismail then showed why he was
so coveted by famous and world-class clubs like Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern
Munich, Boca Juniors, Gamba Osaka and ARFC when he leaped backwards to tip a
precise chip that looked to elude him over the bar. World-class save!!!
This is the 2nd
clean sheet in a row for ARFC and credit must be given to Ismail and the entire
ARFC defence led by Elvis.
These are the voting results:
Ismail – 11
Darren – 8
Soon – 7
Derrick – 6
Elvis – 3
Hee – 2
Kenny – 1
Jinzhong – 1
No comments:
Post a Comment