Turtles Pounced on The Stags

It was another fruitful journey to the south of the Malay Peninsular for Terengganu as they registered their second victory in the AFC Cup with a 1-0 win over the S-League Champions, Tampines Rovers. The win cemented their place behind Group F leaders, Kitchee SC who defeated Vietnamese Champions, Song Lam Nghe An 2-0 in Hong Kong.

Photo by: Ko Po Hui of Bolasepako.com

Joseph Kalang Tie continued his scoring streak against Singaporean sides when he made the most of the confusion in the home side defence to slot the ball into the empty net with Rover goalkeeper, Sasa Dreven stranded at the top of his penalty area in the fourth minute.

However it was his Terengganu counterpart, Sharbinee Allawee who turned out to be the busier of the two goalkeepers. He kept The Turtles in the match with a string of fine stops especially the double saves to deny Ahmad Latiff from levelling the score in the first half.

Brazillian midfielder, Baiano nearly put Terengganu two goals to the good in the second half with an accurate long range shot which Dreven palmed away to safety. The Stags thought they have equalised when a looping header by Ahmad Fahmie was on its way into the Terengganu goal until Sharbinee pushed the ball over the bar for a fruitless corner.

Dreven was once again called into action to stop a shot from Ashaari Shamsuddin as the forward found space in the Rovers' defence to unleash a shot. Then another misunderstanding between Dreven and his defender nearly gifted another goal to Terengganu but Ashaari could not get enough power behind his shot and was cleared away by a defender.

Veteran Rovers striker, Alexandr Duric was kept quiet throughout the match by Terengganu defender, Muhammad Faizal who was assigned the task to man-mark him all the time. In the end, The Turtles slowed down the match and saw it out with another clean sheet for 'Man of the Match', Sharbinee Allawee.

In another Group F match, former Fulham defender Zesh Rehman scored in the 11th minute to give his side, Kitchee the lead against SLNA at the Tseung Kwan O Sports Ground. Chu Siu Kei then increased the lead in the 73rd minute to maintain the Hong Kong League Champions perfect record in the competition.

Kitchee lead the table with nine points while Terengganu are in second place with six. Both Tampines Rovers and SLNA only have a single point so far in their campaign.

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