Sebastian sealed ARFC 3-1 victory with superb positional awareness goal

Playing its 2^nd night match in a row at the Meridien Junior College pitch, ARFC chalked up its 2^nd win in 2016 after a hard-fought but controlled 3-1 victory over Wayne’s friends. 

ARFC welcomed Alvin back from his paternity leave hiatus. 

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

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

The opponents did very well and controlled the match for the opening 10 minutes as ARFC could not get its game going. Thankfully, ARFC’s defence held firm.

Ismail then produced a top-draw save to palm the ball over. 

The opponents then struck the cross-bar and from the rebound, Ismail clawed the ball away. 

Yilong, the power futsal player who was lauded by ex-EPL player during last year’s Tiger Cup, then came on to devastating effect. 

From Sebastian’s corner, Toh rose and could only managed to glance the ball towards their GK.

From a free-kick from Sebastian, Toh met the ball emphatically but could not get past their GK. 

Chun Haw then tried his luck on 3 occasions from distance but all were severely off-target. 

ARFC finally took the lead from a quick break-away down the left. The ball was passed to Yilong who dribbled inwards and from the top of the penalty box, curled the ball past their stranded GK. World-class goal. 1-0 and this was his debut goal for ARFC. 

In the 2^nd half, ARFC then conceded a goal. 1-1

ARFC then wasted more chances. 

Toh then then found himself free in the box when Sebastian’s free-kick found his head again. Alas, Toh could not get a clean connection to the ball. 

In defence, Darren and Tze Ern worked tirelessly to deny their fast wingers.

Eng Lai then came up with a superb interception to deny them a goal-scoring chance.

ARFC doubled its lead after an inspired move from Kenny. Receiving the ball from the right, he drifted inwards with a quick burst of speed, slalomed his way into the box and crashed his powerful shot against the cross-bar from just near the 6-yard box. Luckily, he reacted quickest to the rebound by nodding the ball home for his 67^th ARFC goal. 

ARFC then put the result beyond doubt with a world-class movement. Yilong, Kenny, Javier and Sebastian made some dummy and passing moves which saw the ball being spread to Kenji on the left byeline. Showing world-class anticipation ala Ian Rush, Sebastian instantly took up position at the far post and true to call, Kenji swept the ball across goal and Sebastian was there at the perfect time to rifle the ball into the roof of the net.   3-1 and this was Sebastian’s 101^st ARFC goal. 

With this goal, Sebastian capped off his medical-enforced break for the next 2 months on doctor’s advice.  Otherwise, his health would be at stake.

ARFC held on to triumph 3-1.

My personal Man-of-the-Match goes to Tze Ern who had a stellar match, especially at right-back.  

Voting results:

 

Darren – 10

Wayne – 9

Tze Ern – 5

Chun Haw – 5

Kenny – 4

Blackburn – 2

Toh – 1

ARFC lost 2-3 due to poor fitness level

Playing its first night match in 2016, ARFC fell 2-3 to the F Div team. 

Prior to the match, ARFC was hit by late withdrawals of Ismail, Chun Haw and Jinzhong, leaving all ARFC warriors struggling for breath late in the match.

ARFC welcomed back Weilit after his POP. 

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

 

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

ARFC took the lead after Sebastian came in to replace Tjioe who has worked his socks off in the opening 20 mins. 

Within 77 seconds of coming on, Sebastian exchanged a series of short passes with Blackburn, Soon and Guoxiong which resulted in the latter swinging in a cross from the right. Wayne ran in from deep and saw his first shot blocked by their GK. However, Wayne followed up to prod the ball home for his 17^th ARFC goal. 1-0

ARFC almost doubled its lead 7 mins later. From a quick corner, Guoxiong again sent in a looping cross into the box. Despite carrying a niggling injury on his left thigh, Haron still leaped the highest to glance the ball goalwards which seemed headed for the bottom left corner. Unfortunately, he was denied by a full-length diving save by their GK. 

ARFC then conceded 2 goals to trail 1-1 at half-time.

ARFC fell further behind after conceding from their counter-attack. 1-3

Derrick also did well to deny the opponents on a couple of occasions. 

Mins from the end, from Sebastian’s corner, the opponents somehow handled the ball under pressure from Wayne.  Regular penalty-taker Sebastian graciously allowed Wayne to take the spot-kick instead. With his recent red-hot form, Wayne could not miss and he duly thumped the ball into the net for his 18^th ARFC goal. 2-3

My personal Man-of-the-Match goes to Darren who found himself handling at least 2 opponents for most of the match as he received very little support from the left midfielders, Weilit and Blackburn. 

Voting results:

Soon – 10

Darren – 8

Wayne – 6

Tjioe – 5

Hee – 3

Ron – 2

Weilit – 1

Sebastian – 1

Guoxiong – 1

Derrick – 1