Darren Hedger (centre back, #13) taking his saved penalty in the shootout win over VJC. Darren is a strong, towering defender who is commanding in the air and also capable of accurate intervention at the opposing forwards’ feet. (Photo 3 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
SAJC captain Neville Chia (midfielder, #21) scores a penalty in the shootout against VJC in the semi-final.The heartbeat of the team, Neville is equally adept on the left wing and the centre of the park. The team sorely missed his surging runs from midfield in the semi-final against VJC because of injury and he was only brought on late in extra-time for the penalty shootout. (Photo 4 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
SAJC forward Pradeep (#11) sees his attempt against VJC go over the bar but his cool finishing in front of goal throughout the championship has made him the top scorer of the team. The lanky forward, who also plays cricket for SAJC, provides superb hold-up play upfront with his good close control. (Photo 5 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Daniel Adam Lightfoot (goalkeeper, #24) is the elder brother of the Singapore U-15 captain Jeffrey Adam Lightfoot. His height and bravery are the stumbling blocks for many opposing strikers. He was untroubled in the semi-final against RI. (Photo 6 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
MJC captain Cohen Tan (centre back, #4) was a colossus in defence in the semi-final against RI as he repelled many long balls into the box. (Photo 7 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Mohamed Amsyar B Omar Abdullah (midfielder, #8) was subdued in the semi-final against RI. However if the midfielder turns on the style like he did against VJC, the SAJC defence could be in for trouble with his creativity in midfield and accurate long-range shooting. (Photo 8 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Winger Mohd Khair Bin Mohd Rizauddin (midfielder, #7) is a menace on the flanks and will cause SAJC many problems with his trickery and accurate crossing. (Photo 9 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Khairul Azmi (forward, #10) watches his attempt hit the back of the RI goal in the 1-0 semi-final win. Khairul is a traditional goal poacher and SAJC will have to be careful not to give him an extra yard of shooting space, especially in the penalty box. (Photo 10 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
For more photos of the semi-final game between MJC and RI, go to the GALLERY
Go to next page to read about the two teams’ road to the final
it was a win for mjc 😀
All the best to both teams in the Finals. The only school sports finals that generates greater interest and crowd than the S-League. FAS should support more by helping the organisers play it at night at Jalan Besar Stadium with all the same Fanfare that many boring S-Leagues matches get. The night game will allow parents relatives, friends and interested public come and watch. Definately Full-house.
haha, i believe MJC will progress and win the finals without conceeding any goals. afterall, they technically did not coz the 1 againest vjc was a accidental own goal. not conceeding any goals this season proves that they have defence of an iron wall. further more, they have good attackers and midfeliders to assist. hence, there will be higher chance for mjc to win sajc. however, they should not be complacent wiht their undefeated streak. complacency may cause them their finals. go mjc! bring home the victory! =)
Iron wall that has yet to be tested. Both vj mj played their second stringers in their game, confident of beating both sa ri perhaps? Well sa had other stories, kudos to them, unfortunately we couldn’t join them. But watching rj matches against both sa and mj, it is obvious that sa’s attack is quite deadly. It will be a good match in all parts of the field. Most importantly in the midfield.
in football,the ball is round.anything can happen.SA totally shut us out during the semis and credits to them for doing so.Although MJ has the talent and ability to win,SA is definitely the hungrier team with more desire and passion to win tmr’s match.Good luck to both teams tmr 🙂
I feel it’s unfair to predict that sajc will loss to two goals. It’s more like an even fight, the battle of the underdogs
Two clear goals? ONLY?! I think 5 goals would be more appropriate. Seriously. MJC’s attack is crazy wow. SAJC defence so shaky they were super lucky VJC were off that day, VJ could have scored 5 or more but couldn’t finish. Our meridian players will punish SAJC’s defence and do what VJC couldn’t.
hey meridian, it cheap talk to predict the scoreline… let the meridian soccer boys prove it by action tmr okay… no point thrashing SAJC with words now.
Time will tell the results.
u seem to have great confidence in the soccer boys and that is good. but to put others down and criticize SA is arrogance. It wouldn’t be nice if the SA players work so hard to put up a good fight and all you can say is they suck. Seriously.
I just noticed tht page 3 of the article has details about previous matches and how the 2 teams made it to the finals. However, end of page 1 says go to next page for more photos which kind of makes people think that next pages have only photos and no text because in most other articles subsequent pages only have photos. So, if possible, could you please move the interesting details about the 2 teams’ journey to the final to page 2 and say that more details follow.
Thank you for the suggestions. We’ve made it a lot clearer about what to expect on page 2 and 3.
I think parvesh didnt even know where the ball was when Noah changed his direction just too quickly. And you see parvesh’s legs sticking out like he was about to put in the tackle. I guess the referee saw parvesh ended up kicking noah. Definite foul.
well i was there during the match and i clearly recall that it wasn’t a foul at all. the ref got it wrong on this occasion. noah tried to flick it to the other side and as you can see from the ball’s position and parvesh’s outstretched right leg, he did not go through. noah turned right into parvesh cause he was going nowhere with the ball. in the end, parvesh turned arnd and shielded the ball from nowhere who came in quite hard, parvesh successfully shielded the ball and noah fell… the ref gave a free kick after that. i can assure you that this is what happened as the resulting free kick caused uproar among the vj supporters and a lot of protests from the vj players, even from parvesh himself. you do not know how good parvesh is. play against him and you will find out.
redsports people, noah didn’t outwit his opponent in that picture. parvesh is not one to be outwitted so easily, noah’s legs aren’t even near the ball. it was a clash of bodies and the ball landed behind the both of them. it wasn’t a 1-0 semi final win anyway, it was a 1-1 draw that went into penalties. i’m a photographer and i was capturing shots and i rmb that moment clearly, noah did not outwit him. in the end, the clash of bodies resulted in an sajc free kick.
Thanks for highlighting the wrong score. It was an 8-7 win on penalties.
As you have pointed out, photographer, it was an SAJC free kick. That was because Noah got the ball past Parvesh, and Parvesh obstructed Noah’s progression. So the referee whistled for obstruction for an SAJC free kick.
i still think the word ‘outwit’ is the wrong word to use. it wasn’t like parvesh got fooled, he just mainly shielded the ball from noah after noah managed to change direction and flick it the opposite direction. the referee deemed it as a free kick which i disagree with. i am not condemning noah, he is a very skilful player, no doubt. just that maybe i thought parvesh wasn’t outwitted. i am not biased against sajc in any way or another, just think that it makes parvesh look bad cause he is a wonderful player but like all vjc players, that day just wasn’t his day. hope you keep an eye on him during the 3rd/4th placing. i don’t mean any harm here, just stating my views. after all, this is what the forum is for right? thanks uncle les.
Please feel free to state your view. I welcome it.
I think Noah has the ability to change directions so quickly that he will get calls like those. In fact, some people may even contend that Naoh ran into Parvesh and so the referee got fooled into giving the foul.
Based on the sequence of photographs I got from this incident, Noah was in control of the ball all the time but he knew he wasn’t going anywhere and then changed direction to get out of a jam. Parvesh didn’t deliberately obstruct Noah but Noah’s ability to turn on a dime saw him run straight into Parvesh.
SAJC will win a lot of free kicks through Noah.
The word ‘outwit’ – to deceive or defeat by greater ingenuity – I think describes what he did. By getting a free kick at the edge of the penalty box, he got something VJC were trying to prevent.