Davao Aguilas FC draws Global Cebu FC! The Global Cebu FC failed to take the top spot of the ongoing Philippines Football League (PFL) after their second match against the visiting Davao Aguilas FC ended in a scoreless draw, Saturday night, July 15, at the Cebu City Sports Center.

Had Global won, they could have taken over the top spot on goal difference (GD) as FC Meralco Manila was blanked by Ceres Negros FC, 0-7, at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium, in the first game of Saturday’s PFL. Global has a GD of 9 while Meralco has 5.

“Well, this is not the result we wanted but at least we gained one point, think positive, we didn’t lose the game, we had plenty of chances in front of the goal but we didn’t convert them,” said Global head coach Marjo Allado.

Meralco stays on top with 23 points on 7 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, while Global stays on the second spot but is closing in with 21 points on its 6-3-2 win-draw-loss card. Both teams will meet each other for their next game on July 22, a Saturday, at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

Davao Aguilas FC draws Global Cebu FC

Shu Sasaki, who sealed Global’s win against the Stallion Laguna FC last week with a bicycle kick, had a chance to put Global ahead in the early minutes of the match when he received a corner from Matthew James Hartmann  inside the box. However, his attempt went wide.

“If we converted one early with (Shu) Sasaki then maybe the entire game would have changed,” said Allado.

Davao surprised Global with its solid defense coupled with excellent goalkeeping by Marko Trkulja, who was named Man of the Match.

“First of all I’m very happy because I had a clean sheet after last week, after a 5-1 loss at home, as coach said it was a good effort, that we played strong in defense and those saves come from team defense definitely, I’m very happy with all that, first of all with the clean sheet,” said Trkulja.

Trkulja had some spectacular saves such as stopping Hartmann from finding the back of the net a few minutes before halftime which came with both teams not managing to score a goal.

Allado made some adjustments in the second half by bringing in Sekou Sylla for Paolo Bugas. Sylla had sat out Global’s second home game against Stallion Laguna FC after he picked up a red card in their game against Ceres.

However, Davao’s solid defense continued to frustrate Global that there were several instances that the match became heated. Trkulja was so determined not to concede a goal that he continued to stop the on target attempts of Global such as Hikaru Minegishi’s, who broke away from defenders, only to be stopped by Trkulja. And, Sylla’s attempt just before the 3 minutes added time in the second half.

“This press conference is much better than last week’s after a 5-1 result, it  was an outstanding team effort defensively, I thought we all worked very hard and even at the end we created maybe a chance where on another night we might have pinched a goal and get 3 points but very proud of the effort, it was a great turnaround after last week,” said Davao head coach Gary Phillips.

Allado said it was a lesson learned for them after edging the Davao Aguilas 2-1 in their previous game.

“Yeah because tonight we didn’t break the line, we tried to adjust in the halftime in order to score, to break the line, to break their defense but still we cannot so their solid defending made the difference tonight, so it’s a lesson for us, so we need training session how to beat that when we play against them again,” said Allado.

Jarvis awarded

San Miguel Brewery and the Sportswriters Association of Cebu also took the time out  after the match, to hand over the award of recently signed Aguilas player, 19-year-old Jordan Jarvis.  Jarvis was conferred the 35th All Cebu Sports Awards Special Citation for excellence in football and contributing to the professionalism of the sport.  This was also Jarvis’ second award from the association.

Jarvis was also named UAAP season 79’s Rookie of the Year for men’s football earlier this year, after Ateneo bagged its 7th UAAP championship./With PR from Davao Aguilas FC