MANILA, Philippines — Kaya Football Club-Iloilo wrapped up its Asean Club Championship (ACC) Shopee Cup with a hard-fought 2-0 victory over Singapore's Lion City Sailors on a rainy Thursday night at the Biñan Football Stadium, Laguna.
The Filipino booters finally secured a victory after suffering four lopsided losses in Group B.
Maneuvering the rainy weather in Laguna, both teams struggled to orchestrate an offensive drive in the first half.
Kaya's second-stringer Lucas Del Rosario, however, found his groove and scored a goal via a long kick in the 65th minute.
Two minutes later, Jhanjhan Melliza absorbed a contact from Singapore's Harris Harun as he blitzed his way into the box.
After a lengthy VAR review, the Sailors challenged the call, but the penalty stood, favoring Kaya.
Melliza confidently sent the ball past goalkeeper Muhammad Zharfan Bin Rohaizad for a 2-0 lead 71 minutes into the game.
Kaya played hard-nosed defense in the entire match, making the Singaporeans struggle to convert a goal.

'I am very proud of our players, and I really appreciate their hard work. We won't say that we got lucky, but we really made fast plays and the opponents did not expect that,' Kaya head coach Yu Hoshide said after the game.
'After the first half... To be honest I don't make adjustments a lot especially the players are talking about how to adjust, so what I asked them is to defend...Tonight our players did really great, and in half time they also talked about their adjustments always, so that's very nice,' he added.
The Iloilo team ended its campaign at the bottom of Group B with a 1-0-4 win-draw-loss card while Sailors ended up with a 1-1-3 card.