| Turtles Slay Northern Panther |
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| Written by AR | |
| Sunday, 10 August 2008 | |
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MALAYSIA CUP 2008 QUARTER-FINALS, LEG 2 PERLIS 0 TERENGGANU 0
Aggregate 0-0, Terengganu won 7-6 on penalties
A erronous decision by an assistant referee during their match against Perlis in Kangar nearly robbed Terengganu of a place in the last four of the 2008 Malaysia Cup competition. However, despite the setback Terengganu managed to confirm their place in the semi-finals after a sudden death penalty shootout victory. Goalkeeper Ahmad Sharbini Allawee emerged as the hero for the Turtles as he denied Perlis on numerous occassions and saved three Perlis penalties before slotting home the winning one himself. The goalkeeper who hails from Duyong Island should have been named ‘Man of the Match’ for his performance but instead the award went to the home side skipper Fauzi Nan. After a goal-less first leg in Kuala Terengganu, Perlis began the match with strong determination to win and their performance for the first eight minutes indicated that intention. However, a quick counter-attack saw Liew Kit Kong stiff shot was saved by Perlis goalkeeper, Zainal Rabin.Kit Kong partner in the Terengganu front-line, Che Hishamuddin Hassan was first to the rebound and the pocket size striker put the ball into the back of the net. Much to his horror the assistant referee’s flag was raised for offside. The replay on TV showed that Che Hishamuddin was level with the last defender when Kit Kong unleashed his shot. Thus, by right the goal should have stood or the assistant referee should have gone back to referee school. Ashaari Shamsuddin who was terrible in the first leg continued where he left off. In the 20th minute an Abdul Manaf Mamat low ball into the area released him with with just the goalkeeper to beat. However his touch was heavy and the chance was lost. The 35th minute saw an error by the Perlis goalkeeper who tried to stop a stiff grounder from Zairo Anwar Zailani with his feet. Instead he miscontrolled the ball and it went behind for a corner. In his rare foray into the opponents’ penalty Terengganu skipper Marzuki Yusoff could not direct his header on target despite jumping above everyone else. In the last five minutes of the half both teams went close but both Kit Kong and Philemon Chipetta failed to capitalised on the openings that were presented to them. The second half saw a bit of an improvement in Ashaari game as twice he found Manaf in dangerous areas. On the first occasion Manaf failed to control the ball which would have given him a clear shot at goal if he had done so. The second time the young forward drew the goalkeeper away and found Zairo with a cutback. However the midfielder failed to keep his shot down. In the 58th minute Cik Hishamuddin found Kit Kong with an extra space on the right. However the former international chose to liven up to its status as a former international by taking an extra touch which enabled a Perlis defender to close him down forcing him to shoot high and wide. The same stories went on throughout the evening as players took too many touches on the ball which in the end making their opponents’ job much easier. Tiredness perhaps was the main factor as players seemed to be going through the motion in the last quarter of an hour of the match. Chipetta tried to prevent the match from going into extra-time albeit through a very unsporting manner in the last minute when he dived without any contact from the Terengganu defence. However, the referee failed to book him for the ‘simulation’. The extra thirty minutes failed to break the deadlock with both sides continued to probe but in the end just could not find the crucial ball to breach each other’s defence.Thus the match went into the lottery of penalties. Terengganu camp jumped with joy went the first penalty taker for Perlis, Abdul Aziz slipped a-la David Beckham and Sharbini saved comfortably. Zairo and Fauzi made the score 1-1 but Ashaari’s misery continued when his penalty hit the bottom of the post and bounced away from goal. The rest of the penalties were converted even though Sharbini came close in stopping a couple of them. The goalkeeper did just that when he dived to his left and stopped K Solay effort which had Terengganu players celebrating. However this was a bit pre-mature as Ahmad Nordin’s dead centre effort was stopped by Zainal who decided not to dive this time around. However, Sharbini produced another save from the luckless Perlis defender Amzar before picking himself up to convert the ninth penalty with an effort which any outfield player would be proud of, low near to the right hand post of Zainal Rabin’s goal. It secured another trip to the North to face defending champions Kedah in Alor Setar on Wednesday in the first leg of the semi-finals.
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