Story by Kenneth Tan/Red Sports. Photos by REDintern Chua Yueda and Tan Jon Han/Red Sports
Andrew Chua (RI #1, GK) fully stretched in a valiant attempt to stop Ryson Yap’s (VJC #7, yellow) shot from 30 yards out. The powerful strike by Ryson rounded off VJC’s 6-0 victory over RI (white). (Photo 1 © Tan Jon Han/Red Sports)
Jalan Besar Stadium, Thursday, May 20, 2010 – Dethroned champions Victoria Junior College (VJC) ended their A Division boys’ football campaign with a bang with an emphatic 6-0 thrashing of Raffles Institution (RI) in the third and fourth placing match.
VJC looked keen to show what the final was missing as they put on a superb display of football to race into a 4-0 lead in the first half. The masterful performance was rounded off by goals from Khairul Anwar B and national U-17 midfield Ryson Yap in the second half to complete the rout.
RI’s task of tipping VJC to third place was made harder by the suspension of captain Muhammad Nuri after he obtained his second yellow card in the semi-final against MJC. Creative midfielder Ong Zhi Hao also missed out due to his fractured arm sustained during training.
As a result, they had to field a Vietnamese pairing of Vuong Gia Hieu and Nguyen Nhat Quang upfront with fringe player Kwa Jie Hao starting on the right flank and full back Hoang The Huan fielded in an unfamiliar left midfield position.
VJC capitalised on that as they managed to go two goals up within the first 15 minutes. Stand-in captain Alfred Ali headed in a cross from winger Lim Jin Kai before midfield playmaker Dilip Thapa chipped the ball over RI goalkeeper Andrew Chua into the goal.
VJC continued to to put relentless pressure on the RI goal with the midfield link-up between Ryson Yap, Dilip Thapa and Shuvod Rai carving up many openings in the RI defence.
Shuvod Rai fired over the bar from outside box after a Dilip Thapa pass on 18 minutes before Ryson Yap fired a left-footed effort wide of the left-hand post after a Shuvod Rai pass a minute later.
It was no surprise VJC managed to score another two before half-time.
On 22 minutes, a cross from the left was only half-cleared into the path of winger Lim Jin Kai inside the box. Jin Kai remained composed and chipped the ball over the onrushing Andrew Chua.
Two minutes later, RI centre back James Kwong uncharacteristically missed his clearance from a Dilip Thapa left wing cross. The ball fell kindly into the path of Alfred Ali who wasted no time in sweeping the ball home into the bottom right corner, leaving Andrew Chua stranded in goal.
VJC continued into the second half how they ended the first as they created a goalscoring opportunity within three minutes of the restart.
Substitute Anuruddhan Arunan ran down the right flank before crossing into the box for an unmarked Alfred Ali. However the latter was denied a hat-trick as his header towards the right hand post was denied at point blank range by Andrew Chua.
They eventually made it 5-0 two minutes later. Dilip Thapa teased two RI defenders on the flank before crossing into the box for centre back Khairul Anwar B. The latter’s resulting header went off the left post and bounced into the RI goal.
Ryson Yap rounded up VJC’s scoring on 63 minutes with arguably the best goal of the game. With no immediate pressure, he unleashed a powerful snapshot from 30 yards which arrowed into right hand corner of the goal. The goal brought much applause from the VJC fans in the stands.
RI toiled hard thereafter and finally created their first opportunity on 74 minutes when substitute Varun Vijayraghavan released Li Jinghui down the right flank. The full back’s low cross into the box picked out an unmarked Nguyen Nhat Quang inside the box. However Nguyen’s attempted lob was foiled by VJC goalkeeper Ifwat Wafiy as he smothered the ball.
The last meaningful shot on goal was fired by Dilip Thapa as his attempted lob from 40 yards out sailed just wide of the RI goal.
The result meant VJC salvaged some pride in finishing third while RI had to be content with finishing fourth this year. As a consolation, forward Alfred Ali also picked up the overall tournament Golden Boot award.
“If only they could play like that in the semi-final against SAJC (St’s Andrew Junior College)!” VJC coach Tan Yew Hwee said with a wry smile after the game.
Scorers
Alfred Ali (2)
Dilip Thapa
Lim Jin Kai
Ryson Yap (2)
VJC lineup
Ifwat Wafiy (#1, GK), Jasper Lee (#3), Parvesh Singh Dhillon (#5), Shuvod Rai (#6), Ryson Yap Wei Jian (#7), Alfred Ali (#8, captain), Huang Zhi Wei (#9), Dilip Thapa Masrangi (#10), Fang Jia Jie (#14), Khairul Anwar B (#16), Lim Jin Kai (#17)
ubstitutes: Law Kar Hoe (#2), Gabriel Wong Liang Jie (#12), Mohd Asyraf Bin Mohd Akbar (#11), Nguyen Phuoc Tan (#13), Anuruddhan Arunan (#15), Jaren Thun Jie Ren (#18), Tan Chia Chiu (#19), M Ganeshkumar (#25), Tilwa Raj Udaykumar (#20)
RI lineup
Andrew Chua Ruiming (#1, GK), Li Jinghui (#2), Kwa Jie Hao (#7), Nguyen Nhat Quang (#10), Nguyen Duy Anh (#12), Pranav Malhotra (#13), Hoang The Huan (#14), James Kwong Kam Yin (#16, captain), Yi Hao (#17), Vuong Gia Hieu (#19), Tran Trung Nguyen (#21)
Substitutes: Daniel Ng Wei Liang (#3), Ng Wee Meng (#4), Ngo Hoang Gia (#6), Alvan Tay Wei De (#8), Varun Vijayraghavan (#11), Ong Zhi Hao (#18), Cui Jianqiao (#23), Benjamin Ng Boon Chong (#20, GK)
Suspended: Muhammad Nuri Bin Mohamed Shafei (#5)
James Kwong (RI #16) and Alfred Ali (VJC #8), the skippers of their respective teams, jostle for the ball. (Photo 2 © Chua Yueda/Red Sports)
For more photos, go to the next page
Hi, just to correct again, it’s Vuong Gia Hieu, not Vuong Hia Gieu. (:
Apologies. Thanks for the correction, the changes have been made
Nice article!
Khairul scored VJ’s 5th goal, the one that went in off the post.
In photo 9, the VJ player is #14 Fang Jia Jie.
And Alfred’s first goal came from a cross on the right from the VJ right winger.
Thanks for the corrections.
Hi Kenneth, great coverage on the game. 😀 I think there’s an error in the goal scorer. Ryson scored the 6th goal. Khairul Anwar (#16) also scored one of the goals.
Hi Victoria and Aaron, thanks for notifying the mistakes in the article. It wasn’t easy to spot who score the 5th goal as i was sitting right up at the media area on the 4th storey!
And i rmbed the stadium announcer saying Ryson scored the goal, which i assumed to be true. Haha.
[…] In the 3rd/4th placing match played earlier, last year’s champions VJC trumped RI 6-0 to clinch third place in this year’s championship. 3rd/4th match story […]