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Late goal gives Hurriyya a point

Date: 23 May 2006 | Uploaded: 06:55 PM

Friday(Red) trying to dribble past Haneef. Friday gave Victory a lead.
"I have drawn on the board and told them how to deal with it" - Maattey

Male', MALDIVES -
Hurriyya managed to grab their first point in the Dhivehi League Zone 9 qualification by scoring a late goal in the dying minutes of the extra period. Although Hurriyya grabbed the point, they still remain on the bottom of the table.

None of the spectators would have felt that Hurriyya would have scored, but from a superb free kick by Naseem(KD) Hurriyya managed to level the game in the dying minute of the second half.

In the first half, Victory had quite number of chances to score and to take an early lead. In the 21 st minute, Ismail passed the offside trap of Hurriyya, but while making his shot, he slipped and fell. But he managed to put his foot on the shot, but it rolled away and got deflected on the post.

Victory managed to score in the 42 nd minute by Friday. From a lovely cross by Anwar, Friday headed to the corner of the goal leaving no chances for Ishaaq.

In the second half, Hurriyya started to play better with more enthusiasm and started to make shots, but they could not get a goal until the end of the match.

In the rain pouring match, the players were making fouls and yellow cards were also flying at the same rate. There were totally 38 fouls by both teams in the match.

The man of the match was awarded to Shafaaz of Victory.

Maattey stated after the match that he was very disappointed because of the result and the performance of his players at the last 5 minutes of the match.

“I am very disappointed. We should have got 3 points from this match. I am not saying Hurriyya is not good. But we had managed to grab the 3 points until the very last minute of the game”

He complemented on the hard work done by the Hurriyya players

“Our work rate was obviously very low in the last 5 minutes of the game. But Hurriyya players were increasing their work rate minute by minute.”

Mattey who was left frustrated by the late goal said he had instructed the players on dealing with those kind of situations.

‘I have drawn on the board and told them how to deal with it. They should have dealt with it much better. There are still lots of things we have to learn if we want to be a champion”

Meanwhile, Hurriyya's Assistant Coach, Rafeeu said that he was very pleased with his players' performance

“The boys did very well. They worked very hard and I am very pleased to get a point against a club like Victory.”

“In my point of view victory is in the same level as ours and to get a point from ta match against them is a good achievement”

He noted that there were no problems of loosing confidence from the losses early in the tournament

“Our hopes might have gone down. But for this match we hoped to get a good result and I guess this would boost their confidence too”

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