Rashid's debut ARFC goal in 1-1 draw

Showing the world and its famed supporters in a 1-1 draw, old war-horse and work-horse Huiming turned back the clock with a dogged, determined and Italian-like defending in a 1-1 draw against a very sporting Wolf FC.

Special credit must also to both Soon and Sebastian who turned up to play despite having just completed a 32-km and 21-km run respectively in the Sundown Marathon just hours before the match.

However, Sebastian could only play GK as he could not run at all.

Credit too to Tong who responded to a last-min SOS call as ARFC were short of players.

ARFC started with this 4-4-2 line-up:

Jersey no.	Name	Position
7	Influential Sebastian (captain)	Goalkeeper
31	Vintage Chua	Right-back
14	Combative Ron	Sweeper
18	Determined Huiming	Stopper
6	Unbeatable Darren	Left-back
16	Marauding Guoxiong	Right-mid
xx	Tong	Centre-mid
12	Remarkable Rashid	Centre-mid
2	Unpredictable Blackburn	Left-mid
66	Wonder Wayne	Striker
99	Powerful Alvin	Striker
Subs:
3	Astute-reading sweeper Elvis
4	Dynamic Soon (late)
8	Talented Chun Haw (late)
Absent:
5	Impeccable How Meng
9	ARFC Scoring Legend Haron
10	Sublime Khim
11	Speedy Hee
15	Towering Toh
17	Nippy Kenny
19	Skillful Weilit
20	Composed Eng Lai
21	Rampaging Raymond
28	Hard-man Tjioe
33	Talisman Derrick
45	Commanding Ismail
77	Dependable Jinzhong
78	Steely Tze Ern

Both teams were evenly matched despite the opponents being younger. Their right-winger was especially fast and skilful but thankfully, ARFC has Darren at left-back who managed to keep him a bay most times.

ARFC’s defence was also superb and despite at least 20 cm shorter, Huiming was at his very best to keep out their tall striker.

ARFC conceded a goal in the 17^th min to trail 0-1.

Upfront, Alvin chased down their defence at every opportunity and Wayne also produced some very good off-the-bal movements.

ARFC equalized 7 mins later with Rashid’s debut ARFC goal.  Picking up the ball slightly to the right, Rashid brought the ball inwards before bending a 37-metre left-foot beauty over their GK. 1-1 and what a fantastic world-class goal ala Lionel Messi!

Guoxiong also combined brilliantly with Chua on the right-side to penetrate a few times but to no avail.

Despite being a novice in goal, Sebastian kept calm with several commanding shouts and reading of their balls into the box.

Chun Haw and Soon then came on for Blackburn and Tong respectively.  Elvis then replaced Huiming who needed a break.

In the 2^nd half, Blackburn produced several shots from distance with one shot almost beating their GK who palmed the ball away to safety.

Chun Haw was really unlucky as he was clearly brought down on 2 occasions as he conjured some Steven Gerrard-like lung-bursting runs into the box.  However, the inept referee was blind.

In the end, the 1-1 draw was probably a fair result.

This was a match where ARFC produced some very tidy passing even in defence. There was no panic at all and there were several good moves and off-the-ball running.  ARFC should continue to play this way, especially now that we have Rashid on board and Chun Haw is probably at the peak of his game.

Voting Results:

Ron – 9

Huiming – 6

Darren – 6

Alvin – 4

Rashid – 4

Wayne – 3

Blackburn – 1

Soon – 1

Elvis – 1