A Division Boys’ Football: Defending champs MJC book final place after 2-0 win over RI

Story by REDintern Stefanus Ian. Photos by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports

Victoria Junior College, Wednesday, May 19, 2011 — Meridian Junior College (MJC) strolled into the final of the National A Division Football Championship after defeating Raffles Institution (RI) 2-0. The result ensures another final appearance for the boys in blue as they look to defend their crown against the only other team in the competition with a perfect record, Victoria Junior College (VJC).

MJC started brightly scoring their first goal within the first 20 minutes of the game before adding a decisive second less than 10 minutes later. RI showed resilience and did their best to gather some momentum to mount a comeback in the second half, combating hard for every loose ball to disrupt MJC’s free-flowing style of football.

Raffles’ coach, Phil later commented after the game: “I felt we gave a good account of ourselves in the second half, the way we battled hard for every ball, going hard in the 50-50 challenges. However, the two soft goals conceded in the first half made it difficult for us.”

If MJC felt pressurized by the unfamiliar surroundings and the heavy expectations of being the defending champions, they did not show it. They settled down pretty quickly into the match, stroking the ball around with relative ease while waiting for an opening. MJC had a few early chances but failed to capitalize as their strikers were either caught unaware or lost their footing as they were about to take a shot.

MJC took their time trying out different approaches with long balls, wing plays and one-twos while scanning RI’s defense for a chink in their armour. However, they seem unable to produce that killer final ball to take the lead.

But MJC kept calm and composed and their patience paid off. On the 19th minute, they finally broke the deadlock. Following a shot by Hafiz (MJC #11) just outside the box, the ball took a slight deflection off one of Raffles’ defenders. Although the RI keeper saw it coming, he could not react fast enough as the ball stumbled into the bottom right corner, to the delirium of the MJC supporters.

RI had no reply as they struggled to string a decent number of passes. RI’s only real chance in the opening half came in the 25th minute when a cross from the right found Lim Zi Xuan (RI #7) who took a shot towards the left of the goal as he slipped. However, MJC’s custodian, Daniel Lightfoot, went down well to save the shot comfortably.

Before RI could regain their composure, MJC struck again. Saati (MJC #19), completed a good move by the MJC midfield to double the lead. After receiving a delightful through ball, Saati, nicknamed ‘Macha’ by his teammates, took one touch and had inexplicably ample time and space to drill the ball into the bottom left corner, leaving the goalkeeper with no chance. This was Saati’s second goal in as many games.

After the second goal, MJC controlled possession and goalie Daniel Lightfoot’s tendency to play the short pass to his defenders allowed Muhammad Khair (MJC #16) to dictate play from the back as MJC took their time since they had a comfortable 2-0 lead.

To RI’s credit, they went into the second half with fire in their belly and not holding back in their challenges which led to more than a couple late challenges against some MJC players. They threw everything and tried everything to disrupt MJC’s passing game and for a while it seemed to do the trick as they got more of the ball. However many of their players were guilty of holding the ball for too long and their forwards first touches were found wanting in more than a couple of instances.

The RI aggressiveness got onto the MJC players’ nerves and the MJC #9 was booked in the 63rd minute for a very late challenge against one of the RI attackers. However, the boys in green could not convert those loose possessions into chances and hardly threatened Lighfoot’s goal as he looked set to collect another clean sheet.

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