Fair play to CLeague champions Phnom Penh Crown for making it to the AFC President's Cup Final last weekend. They met hosts Taiwan Power and of course won 6-0! Nah, did they bollocks! They lost 3-2 and had three players sent off when the ref, whose name may not have been Homer, decided not to award the Cambodian team a 'nailed on' penalty deep in injury time.
3-1 down with eight minutes to go, Sun Sovannrithy gave the visitors some hope, making it 3-2 and setting up a thrilling climax. It was not to be and the game ended in farce with those three reds and pushing and shoving blighting the game and Phnom Penh Crown achievement.
We know not to expect too much when South East Asian teams go abroad. PPC were victims of shambolic organisation ahead of the game, in Australian cricketing parlance they would call it sledging, and the players from this region lack the savvy and street smarts to use it to their benefit.
In the domestic leagues we are forever seeing examples of gamesmanship and cheating that would leave any fan of South American football circa late 1960s beaming with pride (ooh you bitch!) yet when they go overseas it's almost as if they are expecting the Queensbury Rules.
Phnom Penh Crown will no doubt be punished for their misdeamours while the ref enjoys a free holiday in Taiwan doing the things he can't do at home. But I don't think we should let the mad last few seconds detract from PPC's achievement. They reached a final in a major Asian competition and pushed the home team, their fans and, allegedly, the match officials, all the way and looking at the result in the cold light of day they can be dead chuffed with what they have achieved.
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