6 Star Performance by TAMilan

It was a tale of 2 halves as TAMilan SC routed Lumayan FC 6-0 in their Division 3 match yesterday to maintain a 100% win record after 3 games. This result has TAMilan poised to take a Quarter-final spot after completing half their fixtures and needing only 3 points from the remaining 3 games to get there. However, the result masked the realities of a very uninspiring first half and any thought of a possible rout of their opponents was not in evidence in the first 45 minutes.

The game began with both teams equally playing a cautious game with the bulk of the battle centered in the middle of the park where Darlington, Man and Poay were trying to contain and control. There was little fluidity and almost no creative spark by the man in black! Although Darlington's neat little shimmies and footwork was a joy to watch, he didn't deliver any dangerous crosses or defence splitting passess that threatened the opposition goal. So it was a surprise that TAMilan actually took the lead after about 20 minutes when the Lumayan defender headed into his own net. Although Lumayan themselves made TAMilan's job easier, the team just didn't capitalize on that advantage and allowed Lumayan to seize the iniative by launching raid after raid on our goal. And if it wasn't for their poor passing and atrocious finishing, we would have been trailing! As they were prodding and pressing for an equalizer, Heng benefited from a lack of concentration by their defence to exquisitely lob TAMilan 2 goals ahead for his first goal of the campaign and the first for any of our strikers!

The second half saw the withdrawal of a half-fit Adrian from centre-back to be replaced by Man. The midfield was reshuffled with Darlington moving into a more defensive position with Ming coming in at right midfield. However, it was shocking to see Lumayan taking a very physical approach to the game as they had done relatively well in the first half with their neat passess and movement. They seemed more content at swiping the feet of any player in black than playing the ball! Ming and Darlington were probably the 2 most fouled players with the former being hacked down in the box from behind with no penalty given.

But TAMilan was unperturbed by their rough house tactics and instead stepped up a gear. Poay notched his third goal of the campaign off his head by meeting Darlington's cross and doubled his goal tally from a sweetly struck shot to the bottom corner. At the back, Suresh made a fantastic double-save to deny Lumayan a goal and Sin hacked the ball clear off the line to prevent another goal-bound effort. But a rocket of a freekick from Wei and a Siang goal after a cheeky backheel from the outstanding Poay had split the Lumayan defence ended the match as a contest. Lumayan then had one man sent off as he fouled a clear-on-goal Darlington from behind. And as he was the last defender, the referee had no choice but to pull out the red card.

Final Result:

TAMilan SC 6 – Lumayan FC 0