April 17, 2023

In the preview article, I said this would be comfortable for us, especially if we get an early goal. Oops. Our Sailors did the first part, but then made Young Lions look like they prime Mourinho’s Internazionale. Speaking to fans after the game, Ishaq (who is a regular member of the Crew and always sings loud and proud) made the point that as a Sailors fan he is disappointed, but as a Singaporean fan, he is proud of the Young Lions for the resolute defensive display. You can check out his interview, along with that of Charmaine (also loud and proud Crew member) over here. Well – to that I say, while I agree with him. It’s a bit …. bittersweet, no? It is of course, a very unique situation, because very few countries’ leagues have both a national team and a club team in the same league. Usually, you support your club team for 80% of the season, and then when it comes to international breaks, you forget about your club for a bit and support your country. Young Lions are abit special I guess. I chose “Hide Your Pain Harold” as the cover pic because we pretend to smile about the Young Lions’ display but at the same time, we’re in pain because we know this was a major missed opportunity to put some points on the board. There’s tons of stuff to get into, and that’s without the usual Instat stats I like to use to supplement some of my points. For some reason, the Instat people are taking an age to come up with the stats for this game, so I decided – heck it, I’ll write my thoughts out without the stats anyway. But yes, tons of stuff to talk about, and I’ve picked out a few main points. Poor Officiating Right off the bat, I want to say this – criticising the referee for a shambolic penalty decision does not mean that I think the Sailors can just rub their hands with glee and just blame the referee for what happened. The two things are mutually exclusive. As Charmaine rightly pointed out in her post-match interview, if we created more chances, or took the few chances we had, the horrible penalty decision would not have any consequence. It would have been the difference between a 2-0 win or a 2-1 win. No big drama. However, a bad decision is still a bad decision – so let’s talk about why it is a bad decision. Once again, VAR rears its ugly head. We accept that referees are human and can make errors. However, when someone in the control room has time to rewind and agonise and deliberate over an incident from multiple angles, I don’t think it’s too much to expect higher standards. This decision was curious from start to finish – in fact, even before the penalty was awarded, you have to wonder why so much time was added on anyway. Take a look at the timestamp here. You’ve seen this a thousand times before – the keeper holds onto the ball for about 5 seconds or so, launches it high into the night sky, and the referee blows his whistle for full time. But no, not this ref. He decides to let Young Lions attack one more time by hook or by crook. 93:10, and the game still goes on. In fact, the Sailors almost scored from this after a defensive mix-up. 93:21 and you can see the ball high in the night sky here, after Super has cleared it back into YL’s half when they pumped it long. Once again – this is always a cue for the ref to go “Yup, thank you fellas, i’mma blow the whistle now, please hand me the ball”. Inexplicably, again no. By the time Young Lions get the freekick, it’s closer to 94 min than it is to 93 min. No justification for it at all – there was hardly any time-wasting by the Sailors. (EDIT (18 Apr 3pm) – I have since been educated by a friendly person in The Goal Difference Telegram chat that actually, the amount of stoppage time indicated is usually accurate as of the 88th minute. That is to say, if there are further stoppages between 88-90min, then it will be added on later as well. I wound back the tape and took a look – indeed Harhys did receive treatment for about a minute from the 89th min onwards, so I stand corrected, I have maligned the referee on this issue – he was entitled to play another minute. SORRY) As an aside, I was abit ticked off by Bernard Tan’s comments on this stoppage time issue in the Hougang game (even though the referee was absolutely spot on there to give that additional time). While Kiki’s injury and the time he took to receive treatment did contribute to added time BEYOND the allocated stoppage time, the rest of the injury stoppages that Bernard was referring to have already been accounted for in the 6min of stoppage time, so it was irrelevant to raise it again. Also surprising that he would surface when his officials made very controversial calls in both the Hougang and the Sailors game – but hey, he’s entitled to post on his own page. If you’re curious, you can go check it out, I replied to him and I hope he takes it the right way. It was unnecessary and dare I suggest, unprofessional, for him to slander Kiki Krajcek like that for no reason, especially given that he is President of FAS and he must be aware that his words carry some weight. Anyway, back to the Sailors. Sorry for that digression, I sometimes blog in a very unstructured way, but that’s cos I type whatever I think. Ok, aside from the referee unjustifiably adding on close more than 30 seconds for no reason when he had ample opportunity to blow the whistle,