Alpha United stumbled to yet another disappointing Inter-Guiana Club Championship run and will have to wait for another shot to claim the title as the Fourth Edition of the tournament continued on Thursday night at Stade Edmard Lama in Remire Montjoly, French Guiana.
The Guyanese side narrowly lost to Suriname’s Inter Moengotapoe 10 – 11 in sudden death penalty kicks following a 3 – 3 deadlock at the end of fulltime. Alpha put forth a better performance following the 3 – 0 whipping by French Guiana’s US Matoury on Tuesday at the same venue.
They will now face French Guiana’s Gelder de Kourou in their final game today while Inter Moengotapoe will oppose US Matoury. The battle was contested on a wet playfield as there were heavy showers before and during the game but it did not affect play even with Alpha commanding ball possession.
In the 38th minute Inter Moengotapoe went ahead with a penalty kick scored by their captain Adilio Vrede. The side was awarded the kick after Warren Gilkes was blown for handling the ball inside the 18-yard box.
However, Alpha was able to equalise through a successful Anthony ‘Awo’ Abrams strike which he let loose on the brink of half time.
The Guyanese played a more positive game in the second half but lost focus and the opposition regained the lead. Goalkeeper Richard Reynolds made an offensive error when he decided to hold on to the ball and gather it too late as a rushing Surinamese forward gained a touch and it hit the goal post and rolled into the goal to put Alpha down by one again.
A defensive error in the 58th minute where Andrew Murray was sent off for trying to clear a ball coming from a Inter Moengotapoe corner kick but got a bad touch resulting in another penalty kick for the opposition. Vrede was on target again to take the score to 3 – 1 while Alpha found themselves one man short since Murray was sent off. The tables turned and they received a penalty kick which was successfully taken by Abrams to make it a one possession game.
The final five minutes saw Alpha creating quite a few openings as the rush was on for the equalizer which they were rewarded with in the 88th minute when 76th-minute substitute Shawn Bishop scored.
In the penalty shootout both teams scored the first five attempts which pushed it to sudden death where it halted when Bishop was denied by Moengo’s goalie Maldo Kwassi while Reynolds was beaten all 11 times by the Surinamese.
