Lower Seeds Kaya and Stallion Snatch Advantage in First Leg of Football Alliance Cup Semi-finals

The renewal of familiar rivalries in the first leg of the Football Alliance Charity Cup lived up to expectations, with the two exciting matches at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium yielding a spectacular 10 goals. Stallion and Kaya take slender advantages heading into the second leg, after registering tight wins against higher seeded clubs Global and Loyola Meralco Sparks respectively.

Even with interim head coach Chris Greatwich being sent to the stands late in the game, Kaya snatched the crucial winner right before the final whistle, with Masanari Omura heading in from close range to settle a roller coaster of a game. Australian attacker Thomas Taylor set the tone for the eventual winners with two early goals in the first half, but Phil Younghusband sparked the Loyola comeback with an incredible solo effort right before the break – breezing past three defenders before unleashing an unstoppable strike from way out.

James Younghusband’s introduction in the second half caused all kinds of trouble for Kaya, setting up Simon Greatwich’s equalizer before finding the back of the net himself to give the Sparks the lead with 29 minutes remaining. But Ricardo Padilla’s inability to prevent Thomas Taylor speculative effort from outside the box tied the game, and completed the Australian’s hat-trick. Omura popped up in added time to complete the victory for Kaya, who are playing for the FairPlay for All Foundation.

“Exciting match for the neutrals I’m sure,” said Kaya general manager Paul Tolentino. “Since the start of the tournament it’s been about exposing our youth players, and once again I thought our youth guys did really well. Fair play to Loyola, they played a really good game as well.”

Despite grabbing the victory, Tolentino isn’t getting carried away heading into Tuesday’s second leg match. “It’s not much of an advantage to be honest. A one goal advantage is nothing, as everybody can see in Loyola and Kaya games,” said Tolentino.

“Difficult to play without a complete lineup, but I’m proud of how the youth stepped up today. We’re very much into it. What we saw also was with the pitch here, we need to prepare more on using the size of the field better,” said Sparks head coach Vince Santos, as Loyola look to keep their hopes of winning P100,000 for their chosen charity, One Meralco Foundation, alive.

The second leg matches of the Football Alliance Cup Charity Cup take place on Tuesday at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.

This post-match is from the official website of the United Football League (UFL). You may read the full and original post-match report from the UFL here.