Taipower get to final

Taiwan Power Company line-up tonight (courtesy of www.the-afc.com)

Phnom Penh Crown will meet the host team, Taiwan Power Company (aka Taipower), in the final of the AFC President's Cup on Sunday 25 September, after they overcame a 3-1 deficit to grab a 4-3 victory when it looked as though they were heading out of the competition tonight. Backed by a paltry crown of just over 2,000, Taiwan Power were hit a double body blow with two goals from FC Balkan's nippy striker Amir Gurbani, in the 24th and 25th minutes. Thinking they were heading to the final as they coasted at the start of the 2nd half, the Balkan coach replaced Gurbani on 55 minutes and from then on it went pear-shaped. Two minutes later Ming-Chan He netted for Taiwan and even though Balkan went further ahead through Garahanov a few minutes later, the tide was beginning to turn in the home side's favour. A soft penalty was converted by He to make it 2-3 and with less than ten minutes to go, Taiwan snatched a third goal that would be enough to send them to the final, as they only needed a draw. Skipper Yin-Hung Kuo poked it home at the second attempt and then Po-Liang Chen added the icing on the cake with three minutes to go. Balkan lost their heads and two players to red cards in time added on.

The Crown squad were watching tonight's match and their cup final opponents

In the final match of Crown's Group B, effectively a dead rubber between Neftchi from Kyrgyzstan and Yadanarbon, the qualifying round winners from Phnom Penh, showed their power in thrashing the Myanmar team 8-2, scoring no less than six goals in the final 16 minutes. Just after the half hour mark Neftchi had opened up a two-goal lead but were pegged back two minutes after the break to 2-2. Then all hell let loose in the final quarter as Yadanarbon simply caved in time after time. Pavel Pavlov claimed a hat-trick, Talaibek Dzhumataev scored twice, as did Ruslan Djamshidov, with Raul Dzhalilov also netting. Pai Soe and an own goal were the Yadanarbon scorers. The Myanmar coach complained that his players were tired, made mistakes and didn't have enough rest between games. Neftchi meanwhile were just happy to have the experience of playing in this competition.

The Taipower team celebrate reaching the final with their supporters