JEDDAH, 19 October — Al-Salama Brothers entered the B division semifinals in the seventh SIFF-Sadafco Football Soccer by edging out a fighting International Indian School-Jeddah (IISJ) 4-3 at the Ministry of Education Stadium last Friday.
The day marked the end of the league marking the commencement of the semifinals of both A and B divisions today of the annual tournament.
The tenth week actions of the championship produced both exciting and dull moments. The tournament also marked the introduction of the first inter-school championship of the seven-year-old Saudi Indian Football Forum (SIFF). An unfortunate aspect of the A division event was that Asian Yellow was disqualified from the championship for fielding an ineligible player in their team. The disqualification was preceded by the refusal of Asian Yellow to begin their match against Asian Soccer without the ineligible player. So the organizing committee had to boot the team out of the championship, according to SIFF President Abdul Salam. The match was awarded to Asian Soccer.
Thus the qualifiers for the semifinals from A division are Friends Sports Club, Asian Soccer, Westar-ACC and Blue Star A. Friends play against Westar-ACC in the first semifinal today.
In the B division match played earlier, Indonesian International School had a cakewalk when they crushed Al-Wurood International School 7-0 after leading 4-0 at half-time. The scorers were Faris Ummer (3), Ali Zahri (2), Nizar Fakri and Ali Hussian.
The third team taking part in this inaugural interschool event is IISJ. Indonesian schoolboys looked confident from the kickoff and were fast on the field. They displayed excellent ball control and played the entire game to their advantage. No doubt, they were all impressive. Their manager Muhammad Ameen Hassan was delighted the way his boys tackled the ball and kept pressure on their opponents throughout the match. "This is our first endeavor and the boys repaid my confidence in them," he said with a broad smile.
Nizar Fakri won the hearts of the crowd and won the nickname as "Maradona of Indonesian school," although it was Faris Ummer who was adjudged the player of the match. Fakri exhibited wonderful ball control and interesting deceptive moves.
To cap it all, he found the target too. Speedy Faris proved his prowess as an all rounder. The team however has promising players like Ali Zahri and Khalifah. Al-Wurood goalkeeper Younus Muhammad also won the accolades as he made several saves. But for his occasional saves, their team might have lost with a still bigger margin.
Al-Salama, with two draws and a poor 2-2 goal difference, had to win this match and that too with a big margin. They meant business from the word go and managed to subdue IISJ who put up a much improved performance. Contributing to their improvement was Rasheed but conspicuous by his absence was Ayoub.
The boys, who suffered defeats in the earlier two matches, redeemed some lost prestige. The teams had shared two goals in the first half. While Naushad, Muhammad Koya, Mushtaq Ali and Muhammad Thottathil found the net for the winners, scorers for the losers were Saad, Omar and Ismail.
Despite the defeat, IISJ’s Ismail won the player of the match award. Nevertheless, the match was exciting as the scores were 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 as the match progressed full of excitement, and finally ended with 4-3 in favor of Al Salama.
With this win, Al-Salama tied with Blue Star and Navodaya on five points. Blue Star topped the group with an 8-1 goal difference whereas Al-Salama scotched the hopes of Navodaya on a better tally of 6-5 against 5-4.
Muhammad Abdullah Salim, Abdul Rahman Houzawi, Yousuf Houzawi, Saleem, N. M. Basheer, Salam and Sakeer officiated as referees.
Teams: Indonesian International School — Fahim Muis, Faisal, Faris Ummer (best player), Hasan Fouzi, Khalifah, Muhammad Abdul Muis, Mona Yusuf (goalkeeper), Nizar Abdul Aziz, Nizar Fakir, Ali Zahri (captain), Ali Hussain, Hussain Hamid, Abdi, Abdullah Mohsin.
Al-Wurood International School — Abdul Hakeem (captain), Sameer Ali, Tunus Muhammad (goalkeeper), Sarwar, Abdul Rahman, Hassih Ali, Zuhod, Muhammad Abdul Ali, A. Ali, Nijad Ashraf, Asif, A. Hashim, Waheed Ali and Abdu Azeez.
Al-Salama Brothers — Abdul Ghafour (goalkeeper), Muhammad Ansar, Mustafa Mond, Muhammad Moideen, Muhammad Thottoli, Muneer P. Riyasuddin, Muhammad Saheed (captain), Noushad, B. Moyin, Abdul Majeed, Shareef P., Mushtaq and Koya A.
IISJ — Aamir, Ismail (best player), Yaseen, Omar, Majeed, Shuja, Saad, Syed Rashid, Niyaz and Yahya. Today’s matches: Interschool — Indonesian International School vs. IISJ (4 p.m.); B division semifinals — Ryan Arts & Sports vs Al-Salama Brothers ( 5 p.m.); A division semifinals — Friends Sports Club vs Westar-ACC ( 6 p.m.)
