Today in the Football Association of Maldives 3rd Division 2017, Police Club has made their entry to this year’s campaign with a 1-0 narrow win against U.N. Friends.

The only goal was scored during the second half. It was midfielder Ahmed Asfaau who scored a wonderful goal from a long range outside the box giving his side the very first win of this year’s campaign.

Police Club, a side with decent records and achievements in both 3^rd Division and 2^nd Division played today’s match without any foreign players using only locals while they have four non-local players listed in their squad. Due to some incomplete paper work the Police side was unable to use their foreign talents in their debut match in to the tournament. In Police squad there are three Tajikistan players and a Ghana international. Four of these also are players those who play in Tajikistan Leagues.

Police made couple of good scoring chances but was unable to convert them. On the other hand for U.N. Friends there were much danger created from them and Police defense was all alert to stop the least threats made by the oppose side.

In the recent times, Police Club were the runner-ups of 3^rd division back in 2014 and runner-ups of 2^nd division in the following year,2015. Police was unseen during last year’s second division and as a result they were relegated to the 3^rd division.

This year, Police Club is led by Ibrahim Shafiu (Saako), who has worked as the head coach for V.K. Sports last year. Under Saako V.K Sports were the champions of 3^rd division in 2015. And in the very following year, 2016, as 3^rd division champions, V.K Sports stepped in to second division. With Saako V.K Sports managed to end the 2016’s second division as runner-ups. In addition to this, Saako is also head coach of Maziya Football Academy and also has worked as assistant coach for couple of years in junior national teams.

On the other hand, in U.N. Friends, team is led by Ahmed Mazhar (Mazey) a former first division player who has played for numbers of first division teams for many years.

Tournament matches being played in the FAM Turf 1 ground and Henveiru ground. This year’s tournament kicked off with total 39 teams, which were divided in to 10 groups. As a tournament format, there will be first the group stage round from which the top two teams from each group will forward to next round, which will be a knock out stage round.

Next Match in the FAM 3rd Division 2017:

Group 6, Lagoons Sports Club vs Club Gaamagu, 6th November, 16:00 hrs  @ FAM #1 Turf

(Photo: Facebook)