BORROMEO BREAKS TIMOR’S HEART

PHNOM PENH (17 Oct 2008) – A solitary strike from Alexander Borromeo in the second half of an evenly contested match gave the Philippines a well-deserved 1-0 win over Timor Leste in the opening match of the AFF Suzuki Cup 2008 qualifiers here at the National Olympic Stadium. The score was a far cry from the 7-0 beating Timor Leste suffered in the last qualifiers in 2006 which was played in Bacolod City – a thought not lost on Philippines head coach Juan Cutillas.“Sure, the Philippines beat them 7-0 in the last match but that was played at a neutral venue and also Timor did not have some of the quality players they have now,” said Cutillas.“Timor played very well but we deserved to win because we created a lot of chances.”Playing under sweltering conditions, both teams were a little slow off the block where Philippines only created the first chance in the 12th minute off a header from Ian Araneta but which went wide.Two minutes later, Timor fought back through Manuel Pereira but even though he managed to beat the off-side trap, he just could not get the last touch as both teams contend with the deadlock at the break.The failure of either Philippines or Timor to put some muscle at the centre of the park meant that the midfield struggle continued in the second half.Philippines then carved their first goal after the break in the 68th minute when Borromeo slammed home the lead following a botched freekick.Timor had a great chance of stealing the one point but their goal was disallowed after the second linesmen spotted a technical fault with the ball not being in play.“I enjoyed the way we played,” said Pedro Almeida, the head coach of Timor Leste.“And the disallowed goal was the mistake of our goalkeeper, so there’s no contention on that. We will just pick up from what we have shown here and improve to our next game.”(aseanfootball)