– hosts endure disappointing final day
Suriname’s Inter-Moengotapoe put on a terrific display of football in the final showdown to defeat Alpha United 3-0 and retain the Inter-Guiana Club Football Championship Cup title at the Georgetown Cricket Club (GCC) Ground on Sunday night.
They entered the final day in third position with two points from two draws behind the host teams – Guyana Defence Force (GDF) who also had two points from two draws and Alpha United who led with four points from a win and a draw.
At the end of the day the eventual tournament victors had comfortably defeated their opponents to reach five points, while Geldar De Kourou needled GDF to move on to four points to finish third.
Alpha’s performance gained them the runner-up position because of the superior goal difference while the army team occupied the final spot.
It seemed that the Surinamese team did save the best for last after getting off to a rather slow start by recording a come-from-behind draw against GDF in their first match then playing to another draw when they conceded a goal after scoring.
Early on in the Inter-MT/Alpha United encounter the teams played matching football but as it drew closer to half time the defending champions began commanding ball possession and had much better opportunities to score.
They managed to draw first blood when Maasie Amaktie scored from a beautiful assist that beat Alpha’s custodian Ronson Willams in the 39th minute.
The second half commenced with Alpha United in search of an equalizer but they were unlucky as they suffered again in the 55th minute when Amaktie exposed the custodian’s weakness by blasting a flat hard shot past him which flew to the back of the net.
Alpha then began playing with urgency but the body language of a few players told another story.
The game was completely in Suriname’s grasp when Dima Steven delivered the final blow in the 84th minute by easily thumping the ball to the back of the net following a flat hard cross from his teammate that once again defeated Williams.
In the penultimate match of the Cup, GDF and Geldar displayed a keenly contested 45 minutes at first with almost equal ball possession, ending without either team being able to score despite both having good opportunities.
However, the second half resumed with the two teams at loggerheads but an opportunity capitalized upon by Orpheo Nalie in the 60th minute for the visiting team was the match decider as GDF failed to recover.
