Football fever

The Olympic Stadium this afternoon was like a sauna. A mid-afternoon shower only made it worse. Nevertheless, the two Cambodian Premier League matches went ahead as scheduled and Phnom Penh Crown returned to the top of the league table, beating a subdued Khemara 2-1, whilst the Defense Ministry came back from the dead to draw 2-2 with Spark in their mid-table tussle. Crown had their teenage starlet, and national under-19 captain Keo Sokngorn to thank for their winning goal, five minutes after he came on as a half-time substitute. He was doubtful with a knee strain after playing three games for the U-19s last week in Saigon, but looked in fine fettle as he headed in Crown's winner. Chan Rithy had given them an early lead and Khemara's Oladiji Olatunde levelled five minutes before the break. With a minute of the first-half to go, Crown were reduced to ten men when Lor Pichseyla was harshly sent off for a 2nd bookable offence. After Sokngorn put them ahead, Crown and Khemara traded blows but no one troubled the scoreboard and Crown retook the CPL leadership from Preah Khan.
In the second game of the day, Spark took a two-goal lead at the start of the 2nd-half with two thunderbolt Justine Prince/Prince Justine free-kicks that Cambodia's no 1 keeper Samreth Seiha couldn't stop. The Prince is the CPL's top scorer with 15 goals. However, his team couldn't cope with the Defense Ministry's never-say-die attitude and after Oum Kumpheak netted, it was left to substitute defender Thong Oudom, thrown up front to cause havoc, who got on the end of a cross from MOTM Nov Soseila to equalise 3 minutes from the end.
I managed to get a quick chat with coach Prak Sovannara to find out his thoughts from the Cambodia U-19 games in Vietnam last week. In a nutshell, he was proud of his squad, who performed with great spirit in each of their games but found themselves lacking in being able to maintain the physical intensity that the other sides managed. Though they lost all three games they played, two of those were against the eventual finalists so maybe it wasn't so bad afterall. Sovannara picked out his skipper Keo Sokngorn and Preah Khan Reach's Prak Mony Udom as the stand-out players for Cambodia. And quite a few of the U-19 squad are expected to be in the U-23 group when it's announced anytime soon.
Online reports in the Phnom Penh Post for the above games, can be viewed here.

• Blogger is playing up again and I'm unable to load my photos from today's games. I tried again Thursday morning without success, so we may be without images until blogger gets its act together again.