Petrokimia salvages some pride in LG Cup
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.