Playing its 38th Veterans match overall, ARFC Veterans was forced to work hard for a come-from-behind 2-1 victory over the Republic Polytechnic staff team (comprising many guest players) at the magnificent pitch at Republic Polytechnic on 28 Mar 2025 at 7 pm.
Both teams agreed to play at 3 30-min periods for the match.
ARFC Veterans was supported by the family members of Haron, Rashid, Kenny and Elvis.
As it was still puasa month, Rashid and haron requested to be on the bench first. Kudos to them for still turning up to play.
ARFC Veterans started with this 4-4-2 line-up:
GK – Zhicong
RB – Guoxiong
Sweeper – Elvis
Stopper – Toh (captain)
LB – Ron
RM – Raymond
CM – Soon
CM – Tjioe
LM – Tze Ern
SC – Wayne
SC – Kenny
Subs:
Sebastian
Haron
Rashid
Alvin
Darren
ARFC Veterans started brightly and Raymond came close with 2 sliding shots. Otherwise, the first half was a drab affairs.
In the 2nd 30-min half, Tze Ern produced a couple of well-delivered corners which were not capitalised by ARFC warriors.
ARFC Veterans was dealt a sucker punch when the opponents scored from a quick counter attack. 0-1.
In the 3rd 30-min half, ARFC Veterans finally woke up and played some decent football.
Raymond won the ball on the right and passed inwards to the impressive Rashid. Spotting Tze Ern starting his run from deep on the left, Rashid hit a well-timed slide rule pass down the left channel. At the same time, both Haron and Alvin were so intelligent to made their decoy runs back to our own half. Tze Ern latched on in a flash and duly lobbed over their GK from distance. 1-1 and this was Tze Ern’s 19th overall goals for ARFC, with 3 of them coming from Veterans matches.
The goal galvanised ARFC Veterans team who took the lead 3 mins later. Soon did very well to block their clearance upfield and the ball rolled to Kenny about 40 metres way from their goal. The distance posed no problems to Kenny who quickly swivelled and unleashed a world-class low shot that eluded everyone and nestled nicely into the bottom right corner. Simply brilliant goal!!
2-1 and this was Kenny’s 89thoverall goals for ARFC, with 5 goals coming from Veterans matches.
ARFC Veterans then missed several golden chances to put the result to bed.
Alvin was the first culprit when he somehow missed a rather easy chance.
Alvin nearly redeemed himself when he powered his way down the left bye-line from Darren’s long ball. Squaring the ball across, Alvin had his arms up in celebration as Wayne was free just outside the 6-yard box. Inexplicably, Wayne fired the ball high and wide to the astonishment of everyone.
Haron then produced a sumptuous right foot volley from 30 matres but the ball flew narrowly wide.
Rashid then hit a clever through ball for Raymond to run in from deep. Raymond tried to fool their GK with a clever step-over but his attempt was thwarted by their GK. From the rebound at acute angle, Raymond side-footed the ball into the side-netting, even though Haron was totally free to his left.
ARFC Veterans then held on for a 2-1 victory.
For this match, Elvis, Ron and Tjioe produced several key blocks.
Tjioe was particularly impressive on one moment when he won a tackle just outside our own box, and dribbled all the way up to their box. A real box-to-box moment!
Both Guoxiong and Darren also came up with so many overlapping runs, and Tze Ern and Soon ran themselves to the ground.
These are the top 5 scorers only for ARFC Veterans’ 38 matches:
- Raymond – 19 goals
- Haron – 17 goals
- Darren – 13 goals
- Sebastian – 13 goals
- Soon – 12 goals
No comments:
Post a Comment