Sarawak did their best to match elite club side ATM, and came close to upsetting the super league side at Selayang Council Stadium tonight, before a last minute goal gave one of the biggest spending club side in Malaysian football a narrow win.
The game started in the visiting team’s favour when hardworking Joseph Kallang scored a wonder goal to put the Crocs ahead in the game with barely half of the game played.
The goal started with a long ball from Guy Bwele towards Joseph who did no mistake to power a ferocious shot directly into the goal.
ATM which are known to be strong replied with an immerse attacking force to the goal, but Sarawak kept their ship steady and led the game until half time.
When the second half started, ATM wasted no time to find the equalizer as hit-man Marlon Alex James, who is also the Super League Golden Boot Winner scoring the equalizer.
Shukor Adenan was then given his second yellow card in the game, and was ordered out for ATM to make a forced substitution.
The game then played on with both teams exchanging attacks.
Barely able to celebrate the equalizer, Bobby Gonzales then put the Crocs ahead yet again in the game for the Soldiers to remain trailing.
However, the lead was also short lived when Bruno Martelotto proved his quality strike by leveling the score, which was now at 2-2, and the game going from end to end with both sides wanting to win the game.
Zamri Morshidi almost put the Crocs ahead for the third time in the game, but his shot was just inches wide from target.
Head coach Robert Alberts made more changes to improve fitness of his team after the goal by ATM with Mazwandy Zakeria, Danglish Papin and Azizan Baba making an appearance.
Nonetheless, Danglish’s weak effort on goal seemed to be one of the many missed efforts for Sarawak which eventually also failed to stop ATM from sealing the victory when Yusaini scored the winning goal for the home side in the dying minutes of the game.
Final score: ATM 3-2 Sarawak
Photo by Penyokong Bolasepak Sarawak Di Semenanjung.
