Police SC assistant coach Rajith Jayavilal blamed the poor refereeing for his side’s 3-0 loss to Army SC in the Dialog Champions League group A match played at Police Park.
“The first goal was from our mistake but referee’s decision had an impact on the match. This is a good match. Army v Police is tournament deciding match. You need to put a good referee and good linesman for these matches,” a disgruntled Jayavilal told ThePapare.com
“Two of the goals were off-side. The match turned because of it. We were unlucky and missed our own chances,” he went on to say.
The two incidents came in the final ten minutes of the match with Army leading 1-0 from an early second half goal. The first was in the 81st minute Army midfielder Sanka Danushka lobbed the ball over the Police defense and with the flag down, by the linesman on the near side Mohamed Issadeen scored with Police players appealing for off-side.
In the 87th minute a high ball into the Police half was pounced by Issadeen again, who faked the goalkeeper and slotted the ball in. In that instance there were protests of Issadeen coming from an off-side position.
This season Police had done well winning two of the four matches to be in mid-table of group A after being in the relegation zone in the previous season. Police had only two wins last season from 20 matches with seven draws and eleven defeats.
“We didn’t take our chances as well. We had an inexperienced side with experienced guys on the bench because we are thinking about the team and future. We need to figure out the defense and finishing. That’s all, because midfield is good,” the former Sri Lanka player Jayavilal added.
