This mouth-watering fixture between Singapore Football Club and Olympic Gaulois saw the return of Friday night football at SAS. Once more, several fine-stricken players under evaluated the time it would take to reach the American School whilst battling through those trying to get over the Malaysian border. The teams entered the pitch to rapturous applause from the four fans and a school caretaker who managed to turn the lights on by 7.59. The first 30 minutes were evenly contested. SFC had a dubious penalty decision waved away, as well as numerous good moves marked offside. It was Ryan’s less talented brother, Liam Shotton, who would open the scoring for Singapore Football Club, followed by a tremendous flowing move that led to SFC’s second through Patrick Beckford. SFC went into halftime 2-0 up, however, many of the players were caught napping at the break, thanks to a beautifully worded monologue from club captain Jahan. The second half would prove to be more one-sided with SFC keeping the ball for long spells of the game. The highlight of the second half was a stunning goal from Akil, who galloped down the left wing to then fire a ball from the edge of the box into the top right-hand corner. Superb finish followed by a severely mediocre celebration. It turns out that belly sliding on an Astroturf pitch is not ideal. The fourth and fifth SFC goals turned out to be somewhat rare sightings on the little red dot. Firstly, the crowd was stunned to see Timothy Walter score a goal. There was even greater amazement to see that the assist came from Shotton. SFC’s fifth goal would come from the sweet right boot of Thomas Phillips. A quick free kick taken from Claridge was slotted in questionably close to the left-hand post from 2 yards. There were suggestions from the crowd that he should’ve hit a left-foot half-volley instead. All in all, a good performance from SFC, and solid competition offered by the French. Man of the match this week goes to Walter, for his all-action display and for playing like someone on FIFA, who only knows how to press slide tackle. DOTD was awarded to Joe Claridge for two assists, zero sprints completed and almost kicking the ball out from the halfway line for an opposition corner under zero pressure.
We knew facing SFC will be a big challenge to overcome. With many players injured, we unfortunately had difficulties to put a complete team. Despite a good first 30 min, SFC took the lead and made the game even more challenging. 2-0 at half time SFC put more and more pressure on second half ending the game at 5-0. Well done and good luck for the rest of the season