May 15, 2004

Roundup of the week S-league

May 11, 2004 Jurong East

Jaguars ended their horrible start to the league by collecting their first point against the Swans at Jurong East.

May 12, 2004 Toa Poyah

The Young Lions continued their remarkable march up the table with a victory over the Tigers.

A corner was worked unchallenged to Syed Fadhil standing at the edge of the penalty box &with little backlift, he duly sent a screamer into the top corner of Bashir Khan net. The Tigers keeper had stood no chance of saving that shot as soon as the ball left Syed Fadhil’s boot.

The Tigers were given a lifeline in the second peroid when referee R Vijay pointed to the spot after Shaiful Esah was adjudged to have pushed Park Tae Won inside the penalty area. However, the normally reliable Hea placed his kick too close to Lionel who responded well to punch the Korean’s effort away to safety.

After that Young Lions score a second through a superb breakaway attack started by Shahril Ishak 6 minutes from time. His slide-rule pass to Fadzuhasny Juraimi broke the Tigers’ offside trap & Fadzuhasny proceeded to square the ball to the unmarked Mustaqim Manzur on the farside to hammer a shot into the top corner for 2-0.

The Young Lions then concede a goal late in injury time when Baihakki tried to intercept a cross from substitute Farhan Farook but ended up skewing his clearance into his own net instead

May 13, 2004 Choa Chu Kang

Sead Muratovic snatched all 3 points for Tampines Rovers in the most dramatic of fashions by scoring with virtually the last kick of the match against Geylang United. But as for Scott O’Donell’s Eagles, it was a cruel conclusion to their night as they went home empty-handed from a match they had deserved to win.

Capitalizing on a costly slip by Daniel Hill, the Serbian defender latched onto the loose ball at the edge of the penalty box to slam an unstoppable drive into Shahril Jantan bottom corner, sparking off wild celebrations in the stands as the Stags supporters went delirious with joy.

There may be eventually only one goal in the end, but the amount of goals did not really reflect the true quality of the game, with both teams committed to attacking football which resulted in end to end goal-mouth action

May 13, 2004 Bishan

Sinchi should count themselves lucky as the scoreline could have easily been much worse for them. Sinchi defence were concentrating hard on man-marking Home United 2 lethal strikers, Egmar Goncalves & Indra Sahdan.

With the four-men defence on these 2 players, players such as Sutee Suksomkit, J Surachai & Peres De Oliveiro were given free space that they made use of.

The free space given by Sinchi’s players to J Surachai was finally made full use in the 19 minute. Surachai picked up the ball in the middle of Sinchi’s half. Without anyone closing down on him, Surachai took his time to bring the ball to the edge of the penalty box before unleashing a powerful shot past Chen Si, putting Home United a goal ahead.

Home United maintained the pressure on Sinchi & relegated them to playing counter-attacking football but it was 1 of those attacks that Sinchi make use of when Zhong Cheng receives the ball on the break. Running into Home United penalty area, he managed to wriggle himself past Aide Iskandar before slotting the ball past Sean Roberts

Almost 10 minutes after Sinchi equalized, Home were again ahead by a goal. This time courtesy of Peres De Oliviera. Receiving a free-kick just outside the box, Peres De Oliviera stepped up & put the ball beautifully into the net of the Chinese side.

In the 54th minute, Home United earned a corner after Sutee Suksomkit cross was deflected out by a Sinchi defender. Aidil Sharin stepped up to the corner flag & put in a wonderful ball that was met by the head of Aide Iskandar putting the ball firmly into the back of the net.

Home United did not sit back & relax. They kept piling themselves on Sinchi & were duly rewarded again in the through a penalty. A hand-ball by a Sinchi player from a corner-kick floated in by Aidil Sharin caused the referee to point to the spot. S Subramani stepped up to the penalty spot & made no mistake by putting another goal past the hapless Sinchi custodian.

The rout was completed with Indra goal. Indra Sahdan had only the keeper to beat after being put through on goal. However, his shot was blocked by the keeper. The resulting rebound was picked up by Peres De Oliviera & Peres put in a cross for Indra. Making no mistakes this time, his header gave Home United another goal, completing a terrible night for Sinchi.

May 14, 2004 Woodlands

A man-of-the-match-winning performance by Rams keeper Yazid Yasin was not enough to stop the Rams from falling 2-1 to SAFFC at the Woodlands Stadium. Throughout the match the Warriors were the superior & constantly force the Rams back

The Rams were put on the back foot on the half-hour mark when a corner from the left by Gusta Guzarishah, eluded everyone & hit Nassirrudin Sawardi en-route to goal.

The second period started promisingly for Rams as Kim scored the Rams’ equaliser from the spot after Masrezwan was brought down in the box by Keita Boubacar 3 minutes after the re-start.

Undeterred, the Warriors piled the pressure on the Rams. The pressure finally paid off in injury time as Conde struck. After doing well to palm out a cross from the left, Yazid had no answer to Conde’s low drive from the top of the box, thus surrendering the Rams hopes of getting even a point from the tie.