Well, this came out of the blue. There were no rumours of this signing happening – all the usual people in the know had not hinted at this signing as well. Supporters all assumed that Pedro Henrique would be back in a Mattar of weeks, not months, so we thought the plan was just to sit tight until then and let him make his comeback slowly. After all, Pedro had already come back from Brazil, and had been spotted chatting with fans in the stands.
In fact, one fan (thanks Ryan Lim) even mentioned that he had spoken to Pedro a few weeks back and he had said he might be back in around six weeks’ time. Well, apparently not, according to the club article accompanying the signing of Manuel Herrera Lopez (Super), which states that “Súper is poised to take the place of Pedro Henrique in the Sailors’ first-team squad as the team launches an assault for the 2023 league title, with the towering 30-year-old Brazilian still in recovery following a season-ending injury in a 3-1 defeat to Geylang International last September.“
So this naturally raised some questions in the SailorFanTalk Telegram chat, and I was also hit by a flurry of messages wondering what’s going on, and what this means for our allocation of foreigners in the squad. Let’s take some time to answer some commonly-asked questions.
Does this mean that Pedro Henrique is going to be de-registered?
We don’t know for sure, but it is highly likely. Let’s do the math. We have Maxime Lestienne, Diego Lopes, Kodai Tanaka, and of course, Pedro Henrique on our books. While we can add more foreigners to this list, we can only register 4 of them for Singapore Premier League games. Please see below, an excerpt from the Singapore Premier League Regulations for 2023.
Maximum of 4 players – Diego and Maxime show no signs of leaving (God please don’t let that happen), while Kodai Tanaka’s injury has spurred talk of him being replaced, but if you look at the rules, he must be replaced by an Asian player, and Super is not Asian. (I checked lol, cos I thought maybe he would somehow qualify as Filipino with his years at Ceres Negros).
So logically, that means the club’s statement is to be taken literally, and Pedro Henrique will not be registered for the SPL squad for now. His injury is probably worse than what we as supporters had hoped for. Take care and see you soon, Pedro!
How about Kodai Tanaka? Is he going to be replaced?
Well, as long as the transfer window remains open, the Sailors can replace him. It’s a crushing blow for both the club, and Kodai himself, and it’s the last thing we’d wanna see. However, the club would be placing a lot of faith in untested youngster Abdul Rasaq if they were to choose not to replace him.
Summarised very neatly by Deepanraj Ganesan in the tweet above, the clock is ticking. Kodai’s replacement must be an Asian player. Will we sign another Asian forward? Or boost our midfield ranks with that Asian slot? Only time will tell. How about Obren Kljajic? Wait, who? Ok I guess we should devote a section to him too.
How about Obren Kljajic?
Apparently, we have a U21 player by the name of Obren Kljajic (it gets easier to spell every time I spell it). We have heard that in pre-season, he played upfront, while various online sources state that his position is right-wing.
Could he then be the one to replace Kodai Tanaka’s place in the squad? Considering that he seems to have Australian citizenship, and could thus fulfil the requirement of registering an Asian player in our 4th foreigner slot? We know next to nothing about him, so it remains to be seen if he will be trusted as Kodai’s replacement, or if the club will go out and sign someone.
An unexpectedly exciting end to the transfer window!
Written by Eddy Hirono
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