It was another fruitful outing for the Special Olympics Brunei Darussalam (SOBD).

The SOBD football team returned home with the highest honours this week after winning the Asean 5 + 1 Football Tournament in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, last weekend.

Brunei defeated Singapore 3-0 in the final at the Sept 22-25 competition to claim the crown.

Placed in Group A, the team started off their campaign with a 6-1 thrashing of Malaysia B.

They continued their winning ways with a 1-0 victory over Singapore.

Moving on into the semi-finals, Brunei edged Malaysia A 1-0 setting up a rematch against Singapore in the final.

The Brunei team comprised of eight players and three officials were headed by Cikgu Hj Hamdan and coached by Hj Wahid Ismail and Rasit Dalai.

The other countries that competed in the two-day competition were Indonesia, the Philippines and Timor-Leste.

The Philippines will play host to the next edition of the competition next year.

Next on the calendar for the football team will be another 5-a-side tournament, the 5th Borneo Cup Football, which will be hosted by the Sultanate and is slated for Dec 1-4.

Special Olympics footballers from Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia will be taking to the pitch at the said competition.

The last international outing by SOBD was the Special Olympics World Summers Games 2011 held in Athens in July.

The team, comprised of 12 athletes who competed in athletics and bocce, returned with their best tally at the multi-sport event with three gold, three silver and five bronze medals.

All the more impressive was the fact that it was the first time any of the dozen athletes had flew the flag for the country at the Games.

Courtesy from Brunei Times