Loyola Meralco Sparks debut in Singapore Cup, advance to 2nd round

In a sparsely populated Jalan Besar Stadium, the Loyola Meralco Sparks competed Friday for the first time in the Singapore Cup—Southeast Asia’s knockout competitions for football clubs.   Taking a break from the Philippines’ semi-professional United Football League (UFL), they were pitted against Geylang United, a team that won the Singapore Cup in 2009 and the S-League in 2001.   Loyola hoped to show to its Southeast Asian neighbors its sampling of the improvements of Philippine football over the past few years and qualify from the preliminary round of the tournament.   Organizers invited Loyola on account of its top first round performance in this year’s UFL Cup.   Five other clubs in the region were invited to compete:  

• Myanmar’s KBZ;
• Malaysia’s Harimau Muda B;
• Laos’ Yotha;
• Cambodia’s Phnom Penh Crown; and
• Brunei’s Duli Pengiran Muda Mahkota

  After a bright start and Phil Younghusband’s missed chances, it was Michael King who opened the scoring for Geylang—capitalizing on a mistake between Loyola’s Park Minho and Ref Cuaresma—to slot into the empty net on the 44th minute.   Loyola eventually sparked and equalized in the second half through Mark Hartmann. The ninety minutes regulation time ended 1-1 forcing extra-time.   With the teams tiring, Loyola countered and Park Minho’s long range effort was cruelly deflected in to win the game for Loyola and send them through to the next round.   First Half   The first half started brightly, Loyola mixing up the short passing and moving with Mark Hartmann’s long balls over the top and they came closest to scoring first.   Mark Hartmann collected a throw-in on the right wing and unpressured delivered a great cross to Phil Younghusband whose header just flashed wide.   The Loyola forward, up front on his own during the game, had a better chance moments later when his brother James stole the ball from the sleeping Geylang defense and played him in but the UFL’s second leading scorer blasted the ball at Geylang’s goalkeeper and captain Yazid Yasin.   Korean defender Park Minho dived into a tackle against Geylang’s dangerman Michael King and got booked for the high foot in the 25th minute.   King lined up the free-kick and curled towards the far post with Ref Cuaresma in goal, badly positioned in the center of the Loyola goal, well beaten as the ball struck the foot of the post.   With both teams finding their rhythm they settled down and could only fashion half chances until a long hopeful ball over the top from Geylang saw Minho let the ball roll for the keeper but Rizawan Abdullah stole in forcing Cuaresma to finally come out more forcefully.   His diving tackle fell into the path of Michael King who calmly controlled the ball and slotted into the unguarded net leaving Loyola trailing 1-0 at the break.   Second Half   The game restarted evenly in the second half, the first chance of note fell to Geylang as Michael King’s free-kick was headed just wide by center-back Rhema Obed.   Loyola began to show signs of life, though, and frequently got in behind the Geylang defense. Another ball over the top from Mark Hartmann found James Younghusband on the left behind the Geylang line, but he blasted across goal and Jake Morallo’s stretch was just not enough as his touch knocked it out for a goal kick.   With the game in danger of petering out, Loyola sparked the game back to life as Jake Morallo crossed in for Mark Hartmann who again was loosely marked at the edge of the box and he chested down well to drill into the bottom corner and equalize.   The Filipino fans in attendance, who clearly outnumbered the Singaporeans, were heard from streets around as Loyola got onto level footing again in the 65th minute.   Loyola were shortly forced into a change as Roxy Dorlas went down after going over on his ankle. Jozef Kaplan played on to the fury of the Loyola players and Dorlas was stretchered off.   After playing with ten men for a short time Patrick Ozaeta replaced him for Loyola’s second substitution, Davide Cortina replacing Simon Greatwich earlier on.   Geylang had the next chance as Michael King played a great interchange of passes and curled towards the top corner but narrowly missed.   After the move Loyola were back down to ten men as Alexandro Elnar hobbled off the pitch, but as he was ready to come back on Jake Morallo was stretchered off leaving Loyola with ten men still. Morallo was then substituted for Amani Aguinaldo for Loyola’s final substitution in the 80th minute.   With the ninety minutes running out with the score at 1-1 both teams picked up a couple more yellow cards while Loyola looked very tired before normal time and five injury time minutes ended with a draw.   Extra-Time   To force a winner the game entered extra time. With the teams tiring both sets of players were finding it difficult to string effective passes together. Geylang tried to attack and Michael King was again at the heart of things but Jeong Byeongyeol intercepted the pass and Loyola countered.   Finding themselves with men forward Mark Hartmann passed to James Younghusband whose shot was well blocked. Park Minho picked up the loose ball from distance and shot, the ball taking a cruel deflection and spooning just out of the reach of Yasin in goal and settled in the back of the net.   With Loyola in front for the first time they were content to keep possession and run the clock down further. Into the second half of extra-time and Phil Younghusband almost forced the ball into the goal as his hard shot was blocked by the defender who fell over as the ball rebounded to the Loyola forward.   Phil Younghusband shot at goal again but Yasin beat the ball away well. Geylang began to pressure the Loyola goal but couldn’t break down the defense and find the killer ball with their final chances falling to Rhema Obed.   Obed struck from distance but just inches wide and then Mun Seung Man beating his man and rounding the goalkeeper but with far too much of an angle to finish, hitting only the side netting.   The full-time whistle blew to the biggest cheer of the night from the ever-vocal Filipino supporters and Loyola held on to record a victory over S-League club Geylang United. — ELR, GMA News