Mateo Roskam scores from the penalty spot to hand Sarawak the 2-0 lead. However, Felcra United eventually won the game 3-2. — Photo by Chimon Upon
KUCHING: Sarawak squandered a 2-0 lead to lose 2-3 to visitors Felcra Football Club in front of 2,691 spectators at Stadium Negeri, Petra Jaya in their Premier League match yesterday.
A 10-minute blitz by Anselmo Arruda da Silva in the second half of the game saw Felcra FC bagging three full points.
Bobby Gonzales had put Sarawak in front in the 22nd minute when he took advantage of a deflected ball off a Felcra defender to score in front of the goal mouth.
Dzulfahmi Abdul Hadi almost equalised for the visitors in the 28th minute when his penalty shot hit the right post of the goal after the referee Mohd Fairuz Mat Desa ruled a hand ball offence on Mohd Sabre Mat Abu. Three minutes later, it was Mohd Fandi Othman who handled the ball and Mateo Roskam stepped up to convert the penalty kick to put Sarawak two up.
Sarawak’s goalkeeper Mohd Iqbal Suhimi did a good job of keeping out the Felcra shots by making several saves and the first half ended 2-0 in Sarawak’s favour.
After the breather, Felcra made numerous raids on the Sarawak goal but were let down by poor finishing.
The game, however, reached a tipping point when South Korean import defender Kim Chi-Gon was subsituted after suffering a cramp.
Anselmo scored his first goal in the 82nd minute, the second four minutes later and the Brazilian import striker completed his hat-trick with a 92nd minute header.
Assistant coach Pengiran Bala was among those disappointed with the result but clear about what went wrong in Sarawak’s first defeat in the new season.
“A draw would have been a fair result for us. We were still leading 2-0 in the last 80 minutes.
“When Kim was substituted, we knew definitely that Felcra would use their game plan by pumping the ball to their targeted marksman.
“I had instructed my players to stop the opponents from feeding the crosses to their striker (Anselmo) but it just didn’t work out,” he said.
“We have scored in every game but we need to know how to defend well when we are leading, especially in the last minutes of the game,” he added.
Sarawak’s next game will be against Sabah at the Likas Stadium on Feb 24.