DPMM set sights on treble after League Cup victory
Brunei DPMM set sights on S.League title and Singapore Cup after League Cup victory
LINE-UPS
STARHUB LEAGUE CUP FINAL
TANJONG PAGAR 0
BRUNEI DPMM FC 2
(Boris Raspudic 35, Adi Said 47)
Even with his side winning 2-0, with 10 minutes left to play, Brunei DPMM FC coach Steve Kean cut a loud, animated figure on the sidelines.
"Get up the pitch!" he yelled, audible even to the media seated at the top tier of the Jalan Besar Stadium.
He was all smiles at the end of the game, though, as his side comfortably dispatched Tanjong Pagar 2-0 to lift the StarHub League Cup trophy last night.
"I wasn't concerned or worried," former Blackburn Rovers manager Kean explained after the game.
"I was just a little annoyed at the way we struggled to get the ball up the pitch during the last 20 minutes.
"We were getting pinned back, we weren't compact, and perhaps that's where we still have work to do."
It was DPMM's third League Cup victory after previous triumphs in 2009 and 2012, but Kean clearly wasn't getting carried away with the success.
In his sights are the Great Eastern-Yeo's S.League, where they lead the standings by three points after 18 rounds, and the RHB Singapore Cup, in which they are through to the last four.
MORE TO COME
"There's more work to do, more business to come," said Kean.
"The league title is what we want; that's the first thing we set our sights on at the start of the season."
The manner in which DPMM brushed aside the Jaguars last night, suggests that the Brunei club could well have what it takes to make a clean sweep of all competitions.
They opened the scoring in the 35th minute when Hendra Azam's pinpoint corner-kick found Bosnian defender Boris Raspudic, who guided his header into the top corner.
Led by marquee man Monsef Zerka and later the hard-running Firdaus Idros, the Jaguars created chances and kept the DPMM backline busy all night.
But a lapse of concentration at the start of the second half sealed their fate.
Two minutes after the break, midfielder Azwan Ali, who put in a solid performance in the DPMM engine room, embarked on a brilliant run down the left before crossing for Adi Said, who finished from close range.
Tanjong Pagar continued to press, but were luckless in front of goal. The closest they came was when a Sebastien Etiemble free-kick came back off the bar in the 81st minute.
The win keeps alive DPMM's hopes of winning the treble in Kean's first season in charge.
"The treble is certainly possible," He said.
"I said before that if we had a strong squad, we could have a go at everything.
"We have a good team. We've come a long way, and we can go even further."
TANJONG PAGAR: Aurelien Herisson, Nor Azli Yusoff (Ruzaini Zainal 57), Hanafi Salleh, Anthony Aymard, Zahid Ahmad (Asraf Rashid 73), Sazali Salleh, Tengku Mushadad (Firdaus Idros 62), Sebastien Etiemble, Ahmad Latiff, Kamel Ramdani, Monsef Zerka.
BRUNEI DPMM: Wardun Yussof, Joe Gamble, Abdul Aziz Tamit, Boris Raspudic, Azwan Saleh, Rosmin Kamis, Roberto Alviz (Sairol Sahari 90), Hendra Azam (Najib Tarif 65), Azwan Ali (Awangku Fakharrazi 75), Adi Said, Roy O'Donovan.
TNP Man of the Match: Azwan Ali (DPMM)
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