Petrokimia salvages some pride in LG Cup

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Petrokimia Putra of Indonesia made amends for its failure to get into the final of the inaugural ASEAN Club Championship -- LG Cup -- by taking third-place after defeating Perak FC of Malaysia 3-0 at the Bung Karno stadium here on Saturday.

Zaenal Ichwan gave two goals, in the 67th and 68th minutes, and Brazilian Rivaldo Costa Amaral Filho scored the other in the 35th minute.

Perak FC had to play with ten men for almost the whole second half after their captain Syamsul bin Mohammad Saad was shown the red card in the 54th minute.

The match kicked off with the two teams taking turns to attack through their respective flankers.

Petro seemed to be enjoying the upper hand in the tactical offensive with the best chance coming after 20 minutes when Rivaldo broke unmarked into the penalty box. But he kicked the ball wide.

Rivaldo finally opened the scoring 15 minutes later. He blasted home a cross from the left flank with goalkeeper Saravanan unable to catch it.

Petro could have increased their lead toward the end of the first half if Rivaldo's header, thanks to Edi Rusli's well-served chip, had not gone inches over the bar.

Entering the second half, Petro did not light up on the pressure with Rivaldo still giving an outstanding performance.

His stylish maneuver forced Syamsul Bin Mohammad Saad to resort to a harsh tackle which prompted referee Moag Addly Bin Abdullah to show the red card to the Malaysian.

Perak started to wobble, which was duly capitalized on by Petro through Zaenal Ichwan, who made a solo run through Perak's defense before slotting home the ball.

A few minutes later, Zaenal was on target again, latching on to a bouncing ball following Rivaldo's hard shot from outside the box.

Petro's coach Alexander Sikov said that his team appeared to have fared better than they did during their 8-7 defeat in a penalty shootout to East Bengal in the semifinals.

Sikov said that he was familiar with Perak's play and had used this knowledge to draw up his game plan.

"Our players fancied one-to-one challenges," he said.

Mohammad Zakaria, Perak's assistant coach, complained about poor refereeing.

"I'm truly disappointed with the referee. His poor officiating spoilt our game, particularly after he handed out the red card. It wasn't as harsh a foul as would merit a red card," he said.