Maldives, who had got together for a merely month long training camp before the regional football championship SAFF, last Wednesday (11) ended Sri Lanka’s year long campaign for the title, in the event’s semi-final played at the Sugathadasa Stadium.

The 70th minute goal from Ibrahim Fazeel sank the hopes of the Sri Lankan fans, who had gathered in their thousands on Wednesday. From the time the experienced duo, Fazeel and Ali Ashfaq, started showing their dribbling skills and the perfect control they had over the ball, Sri Lankan camp were sensing the need for an urgent goal to get rid of the mounting pressure. But the Lankans’ chances went begging as their key striker Kasun Jayasuriya’s kicks either found the safe hands of the opposition goalkeeper or flew over the cross bar.

Sri Lankans fought valiantly and used all their strength and were second to none in all departments but the speed and the absolute control of the Maldivian international Ashfaq made the difference.

There was always a danger whenever Ashfaq had the ball. The noise from the Sri Lankan crowd suggested they had been agitated. The crowd was keen when Ashfaq had the ball, and, even some senior journalists in the press box too virtually choked, as if they were in a gas chamber, when the player neared the penalty box! Ashfaq played a sensible game even when he was guarded by the hosts’ defenders, to make the crucial pass to a well-positioned Fazeel to score the only goal of the match.

Born in an archipelago, where sandy beaches are found in abundancem than grassy football pitches, Ashfaq and his colleagues had gathered the strength to beat their strong counterparts. According to their Manager, it is probably the backing they had got from the masses.

"We had a packed stadium in Male when we played the final group match against India," Manager of the Maldivian team said. All dressed in red, the massive crowd had cheered their team till the last minute of the match against India.

Having learnt the basics from Sri Lanka several years ago, Maldives, who have just a handful of grass pitches to train in, have come a long way to beat even their gurus outside their islands. Undoubtedly their training and coaching aspects might have helped them a lot to take on any regional team with confidence, but the fact that the Maldivians treat soccer as their heart throb seemed to have given them an extra edge.

The Sri Lankan fans, mostly the fans of several Premier Clubs, filled the Sugathadasa Stadium in thousands last Wed. but not to the brim as it was seen in Male where football is the number one sport and, probably, the only popular sport.

In reality, the scene outside the Stadium was as dull as any normal day. Played under the shadows of cricket, it was the dedication of some dozen of energetic young players that has attracted love towards this poor man’s game which is still kindling in the hearts of at least several thousands of Sri Lankans.

When the curtain comes down on the SAFF Championship on Saturday (this article was written on June 12), the heroics of the local soccerites who took us to the semi-final, will be history and they will remain unnoticed until another tournament comes.

Ask a sports lover in Sri Lanka the name of the captain of their football team, you are sure to get a wrong answer. A lot of them cannot be knowing who Chathura Madhuranga is. But the diehard captain of the Sri Lankan team is a household name in Male!

If you asked who Jaysuriya was, even the spectators would have shown the local cricketer Sanath Jayasuriya who was watching the Semi-final at the Sugathadasa stadium. But what the strikers Kasun Jayasuriya and E.B. Channa are doing for Sri Lanka is known only to a few. They too are household names, though, in Male where they have represented several Clubs.