Cebu Football Club’s players huddle up during their match against Stallions Laguna FC in the PFL Copa Paulino Alcantara on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021. | Photo from PFL
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Philippines Football League’s (PFL) newcomers, the Cebu Football Club (CFC), bowed down to the more experienced Stallions Laguna FC, 0-1, in the PFL Copa Paulino Alcantara on Wednesday evening, November 10, 2021 at the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) National Training Center in Carmona, Cavite.
After months of waiting, CFC finally experienced their debut match in the PFL, which somehow didn’t disappoint many Cebuano football fans, because CFC really put up a good fight before losing to the veteran Stallions.
To boost the club’s morale after their debut loss, CFC’s head coach Oliver “Bingbing” Colina told his players that there’s nothing to be ashamed of with the loss.
“In our first game in the first half, the players were most likely excited, while some players were nervous, but overall we played well,” said Colina whose wards were credited to have given the match an end-to-end action.
Senegalese forward Abou Sy scored the lone goal for Laguna in the 19th minute.
CFC was caught off guard with Sy’s goal as they were under the impression of a fair play when one of the latter’s teammate was down on the pitch.
Instead, Sy continued playing and exploited the situation to score the goal in the middle of the penalty box with a short kick.
For Colina, it should have been a fair play and the match should’ve been paused to aid the player lying on the ground.
Nevertheless, they don’t want that situation as an excuse to their loss and will just accept it as a tough lesson.
“That goal was about respect, it should have been fair play, they caught us by surprise, but that was a lesson learned from the game last night,” added Colina.
CFC showed some fight after the goal by attacking Laguna’s goal in multiple ocassions from team captain Evren Tasci, his brother Baris, and John Renz Saldivar but most of their attempts went wide.
They became more aggressive in the second half which forced Laguna to tighten their defense.
They had better ball control and better ball possession in the second half, but all of their attempts just didn’t find the back of the net.
Cebu FC will next face Kaya FC Iloilo in the semifinals on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021 at 7:30 PM.
This as United City FC withdrew from the tournament, giving CFC an automatic slot to the semifinals of this PFl mini-tournament, a precursor of February 2022’s regular season.
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