September 23, 2004.
AFC
Cup 2004 Quarter-finals – Second Leg
|
Home United |
2 |
1 |
Olympic |
|
Egmar Gonclaves 70' Peres De Oliveira 74'
|
|
|
Abas Ali Atwi 63' |
A day after the Eagles got into the history book; the Protectors followed
them as they triumph 2-1 over
The hero responsible for the triumph
was a surprise as substitute Fahmie Abdullah rose to
the challenge on the night after coming off the bench to in setting up the 2
goals that beat
The 30-year-old midfielder had long
been a player viewed upon by the Protectors fans as a ‘waste’ in the Home
United team, who then targeted him for the boos
treatment whenever he is on the pitch.
The teams were tied 3-3 on aggregate
going into the return encounter of their quarter-final tie with Home United
enjoying a slight advantage after scoring 3 away goals in
Olympic Beirut play like most Middle-Eastteams that I have witness in following the influence of
the South American style of football
with short passes, 1-2 movement, triangle passing & a love to run at defences. It is a style of football that local players
rarely come up in the ASEAN region adding to
the fact some of the Olympic players were far more physical players than
local players meant that Home United could not hope to defend the way they do
in the S-league & get away with it.
Therefore coach Steve Darby had dished
out a tactic of Home United defenders & midfielders constantly harassing
the Olympic players & trying to reach the ball before it could reach any
Olympic player. It worked perfectly in the first half with no clear Olympic
chance created despite all their footballwork on the
ball. Instead Home United could even have taken the lead twice with Indra & Peres both involved. The first was when Indra was fouled & Peres step up as expected to
dispatch the freekick but the shot had not curled to
the side as one would have hoped for allowing the Olympic keeper to tip the
ball over. The second was a shame as after all the great movement by Indra & Peres. After Indra
got the ball on the edge of the box, he smartly took the ball out drawing out
Olympic defenders & Peres noticed. The Brazilian smartly rushed in from the
blind side from the Home right & Indra saw that
putting in a great split pass finding Peres with the shot to come unstoppable.
All was prefect except the shot had to hit the inside of the bar & came out
to be clear by Olympic defenders.
The second half started out rather
slowly & it is not the game I am talking about but the fact Olympic came
out of the dressing room late & once out their players held out the game
even further with little tricks. A trick no doubt meant to unsettle Home U it
could not worked but it got part of the crowd anger.
After all that another change in
tactics by Home United with the defending pushed up higher up into the Olympic
half. It is clear the protectors wanted Olympic to play more long passes out of
defence rather than allowing them to build up their
attack. This way Home United found the defending far easier despite the more
physical Olympic attack as it meant Olympic midfield could not move out to
support their attack in quick time. A smart move & it appear to pay off
until a freekick given by the Korean referee on the
edge of the box after Aide & Aidil group up to
stop an Olympic movement. Unable to view it unbiased way one cannot feel that
the freekick should not be given & it did not
help that a goal was scored from it. Abas Ali Atwi dispatched an unstoppable freekick
past Lionel into his right hand corner. The heart of many must have sink but
fortunately Home United players never did.
With the impetus to attack, substitute
Fahmie Abdullah came off the bench with the
instructions from his coach Steve Darby to produce the goods. He did just that
as soon Home United were back on level term. A cross from Fahmie
Abdullah on the Home United left was met by Peres & won. The header went
across the box into the path of record markman Egmar & the ex-Singapore international between 2
Olympic players caught in no-man-land leap up to place a firm header into the
net past Olympic custodian Mohamad Savtina. With the equaliser, it
was time to kill off the game in Home United style. After a freekick
was awarded on Home United left, Fahmie cross in the
ball & Olympic defence was caught napping with 3
Protectors – Indra, Egmar
& Peres - attacking it but only 1 Olympic defender found anywhere near
them. Peres got to the ball first & dispatching it into the net. It was
celebration time.
But the action on the field was not
over as Olympic started a screaming contest soon after as each Home United tackle was followed by a scream that could
woken anybody in Bishan. Another Olympic trick to
unsettle Home United & it nearly pay off this time when towards the end a
mix-up in the Protectors defence left Krikor Agob Alozian
free on his own with only Lionel to beat. Shocking & fortunately though his
shot was fired just wide of the post.
A great experience for local players
like Indra, Azhar, Lionel
& Irman etc in learning football other a much
stronger region.
With