UPM Tournament Is Off

The Northern Warrior's participation to the UPM International Invitational in Serdang from November 17th is now off. The news was forwarded to the coaching staff by UUM Sports Director, En Shaffery Rejab. He mentioned that the cancellation is very untimely but he is unable to commit himself towards the matter as the Vice Chancellor's office had issued a notice that all acitivities involving it's students are temporarily suspended during the examination week. Therefore, the team will have to wait for the new schedule to prepare themselves for the upcoming Prima Cup and UiTM Invitational Quadrangular scheduled for December.

The Northern Warriors will now get to focus on their examinations and plan themselves for their return to their respective states until a call up is extended to all players.

Inter DPP Mini Soccer Carnival - Finals

Tuesday, October 28th 2009 is a night for all the eight participating teams to cherish. It was an evening where all the semi-final and final matches of the UUM Inter DPP Mini Soccer Carnival 2009 were held. It involved 5 DPPs namely, DPP Malaysia Airlines (MAS - 3 teams in 2 different categories - junior and senior), DPP Yayasan Al-Bukhary (YAB), DPP Proton, DPP Petronas and DPP Bank Rakyat. Despite their tight schedules preparing for their final examinations, the lads still able to take their time off preparing themselves for the cruncher. Backed by their strong supporters, all the participating teams played their heart out to outplay their respective opponents.

Leading the contenders for the junior and senior categories is DPP MAS with 2 teams in the junior category and a team in the senior category. The match kicked-off with DPP MAS A took the field against DPP TNB. DPP TNB beat the odd by outplaying the favourite MAS A with a 2 goal lead and in the first half and ended the match with 2-1. Soon after, DPP MAS B took on DPP Petronas in the first semi final of the senior category. The outcome of the match, it was DPP MAS B who walked out the winner with 1-0 win. The second semi-final of the junior category involved DPP MAS B against DPP Bank Rakyat. DPP Bank Rakyat backed by their hardcore fans and supporters drummed themselves on the wet condition. They found it hard to beat the balanced team of DPP MAS B lead by Mohd Zulhusni Hasani. The full time ended in 0-0 and it took the penalty kicks to decide the finalist, joining DPP TNB. At the end it was DPP MAS B that came out the winner after DPP Bank Rakyat's fourth penalty kicker failed to put the ball accross the goal line.

The second semi-final of the senior category was between DPP YAB against DPP Proton. The match was played at high tempo and both teams suit the semi-finalists tag. The penalty shoot-out again was the decider to decide the outright finalist, to meet DPP YAB in the final after both teams were tied at 1-1. The outcome of this match favoured DPP YAB as they managed to put 4 goals in the penalty shoot-out compared to only 3 by DPP Proton. Therefore the finals were between DPP MAS A against DPP TNB while in the senior category, it was between DPP MAS B against DPP YAB.

In the junior category, title favourite DPP MAS A emerged champion after beating DPP TNB in the penalty shoot-out after both teams were tied at 0-0. Meanwhile in the senior category DPP YAB was the champion of the 2009 edition after defeating DPP MAS B 1-0. However the tensed final was marred by explosive thrown by a spectator into the field. Match officials abandoned the match for almost 10 minutes but the electrifying finals continued to get the cheering voices from the spectators. DPP YAB managed to hang up to the solitary goal till the final whistle. Congratulations to the Junior Category Champion - DPP MAS A and Senior Category Champion - DPP YAB. The champions pocketed RM500 each while the losing finalist earned RM200 each.

The Northern Warriors Travel To Penang

The Northern Warrior starts their preparation towards the UPM International Invitational Tournament by having a friendly match against Chinese Recreation Club of Penang at the CRC's ground in Burmah Road. The match was organized as the team needs a good warm up match and CRC fits them well for the purpose. CRC is fourth in the Penang 2009 Division One League. The UUM team will have many new faces in their line up as most of the key players in the previous team had graduated. Among the new faces that will feature are Mohd Talha Ismail, Mohd Zulhusni Hasani and Rusdi Sama-Alee.

UUM hopes to put up a strong and reliable team for their future tournaments namely the PRIMA Cup and the UiTM International Invitational Cup.

Taufikh Failed ..

UUM's sole representative to the MASUM soccer team preparing for the SIPMA Games in October, Mohd Taufikh Abdullah failed to make the cut to the final team. The outcome of the final selection process was made known to him after the last day of the training camp that was held in University Technology Malaysia's (UTM) city campus in Jalan Semarak, Kuala Lumpur from August 28th to 31st 2009. Taufikh who play in defence, struggled to find his footing to convince the selection panels, headed by coach Razak Jumadi of International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM).
The failure was due to the inclusion of several new players from University Technology MARA (UiTM) who had played in the FAM Cup League to compete for the limited spots. However it was a good exposure and valuable experience for him to have trained under different coaches and different training environment. The UUM team management and coaches as well as the team members are proud of him.

UUM To Compete In The FAM Cup 2010?

UUM will most likely compete in the FAM Cup 2010. Efforts towards forming up a strong team for the competition had been geared by the UUM Sports Centre, headed by it's Director, Encik Shafferi Rejab. Series of trials had been conducted and to date, 10 players had been identified and their names had been submitted to the Registrar's office. The selected trialists will be called soon for an interview. Currently there are only few players (staffs) left to be considered to represent UUM to the tournament. They are Ahmad Rafiqi Roslan, Mohd Hamzah Adanan, Rozaimi Omar (defenders), Mohamad Ibrahim, Mohd Fahmi Mohd Zulkifli, Mohd Sayazi Abdul Mutalib (midfielders) and Asyraf Ibrahim, Mohd Iswandy Abdul Wahab and Syafulrizam Azizan (strikers).
Several players from the students' team, The Northern Warriors, will also be called up to strengthen the team. This will ensure that the soon to be set up team, will get full support from the UUM's community. The team will be most likely coached by UUM's staff coach, Azman Hj Eusoff.

Meanwhile, UUM's Vice Chancellor, Tan Sri Nordin Kardi, had given his consent towards putting up a team to the FAM Cup challenge. With this effort, it is hoped that UUM will be able to promote is name back to the country's football fraternities.

The Northern Warriors To Participate in IRAUG 2009

The Northern Warriors will be participating in the Indian Rim Asian University Games 2009 in Perth, Australia. The games is scheduled for December 7th - 11th 2009. The multi-sports games is jointly organized by University of Western Australia (UWA), Australian University Sport (AUS) and Eventscorp of Australia. The UUM soccer team will be accompanied by badminton and another sport to be confirmed later. Besides soccer and badminton, the games will also host beach volleyball, hockey, cricket, judo, rugby 7, tennis, water polo and ultimate.

The soccer event will be played in an 11-a-side format where each team is allowed to register 18 players and maximum of 5 officials. Therefore, a thorough selection will be made to select the strongest possible team to represent UUM and the country. The current Inter DPP Mini Soccer Carnival and the proposed UUM Champions League will be the best platform to identify potential players for the purposed. The preparation for the tournament will start in November.

UUM Champions Cup 2009

The preparation towards the inaugural UUM Champions Cup 2009 is heating up. The budget for the tournament had been finalized by the UUM Sports Centre and its organizing committee. Should everything goes well, the tournament is scheduled for it's soft launch on October 5th 2009 simultaneously with the semi finals and final match of the UUM Inter DPP Mini Soccer Carnival which was adjourned before Ramadhan. The organizing committee is trying very hard to get sponsors to contribute to the tournament and efforts towards securing a deal with a telecommunication firm is at the final stage.

Representatives from the Students Residential College (DPP) will be invited for a briefing pertaining to the tournament and the outcome will determine the full concept. The organizer is optimistic to get all the DPPs to participate in the inaugural tournament except for DPP Muamalat where majority of it's students are girls.

However the proposed 3 months period to run the league needs to be scrapped as the students will be sitting for their final papers in November before taking a long break and allowing the UUM soccer team, The Northern Warriors, to prepare themselves for the PRIMA Cup in Thailand, the UiTM Quadrangular Invitation Cup in Shah Alam and the Indian Rim Asian University Games in Australia.