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, he then compounded it by erroneously blowing for a penalty.
Till today, I don’t know who the foul was called on. Is it Lionel Tan? It has to be, right, given that he was shown a yellow card? I ask that question because if I was forced to watch that whole sequence and spot one foul, I’d say the closest would have been Adam Swandi on Harhys (see above highlighted in black). But that was not who the foul was called for. It gets worse.
The referee then makes the action that suggests the penalty was given for a holding foul. Please, scroll up, and look at the blue circle. How does Lionel Tan commit a holding foul on the Young Lions player when he is in front of him? And if you suggest that perhaps he was giving the penalty for Adam Swandi holding Harhys, then should he not rescind the yellow card awarded to Lionel Tan? It’s all a bit confusing. A shocking decision – you’d think that if noone can spot what the foul is, then VAR has to reverse the decision. But nah, DRAMAAAA for the league, take it people!
Anyway, Emaviwe stepped up and dispatched a beautiful penalty to equalise. And hey, despite all that was said – it was deserved. Young Lions deserved a point out of that game. Let’s turn our attention now to the Sailors and how we effed it up.
Poor Chance Creation
I don’t have the stats with me, but I felt the Sailors struggled to create high quality chances (save for the two big chances for Abdul Rasaq and Shawal Anuar). Considering the gulf in class between both teams, this is not very encouraging.
Young Lions stayed compact, and shuffled from side to side to try to deny the Sailors space. This is a very common tactic employed by teams that know they are going to be outplayed most of the time if they go toe to toe with their opponents. Given the individual quality we boast in our ranks, it is not at all surprising that Young Lions lined up this way and did this. Their only route to potentially getting anything out of this game lay in keeping the score down for the Sailors, and hoping to hit us on the counter or on set pieces.
It is at this point that I start getting flashbacks about Arsenal. You will realise that in my blogs I write a lot about Arsenal. That’s because I am a huge Arsenal fan as well, and over the years, have seen all types of football played by North London’s premier club. The Sailors performance felt a lot like the “sterile possession” phase, where we had possession but never really looked that threatening.
I put that down to some “chaos” being needed. When you’re faced with a team that is defending doggedly, and with discipline, then you need to introduce a little chaos. You do this either by making the passing faster, or by beating your man with a dribble. We didn’t seem to do either of this very much. Without chaos, teams will just shuffle side to side, stay deep, and make it hard for you to create chances.
Big Missed Chances
When the xG stat is finally released by Instat, I am pretty sure the LCS xG will be pretty high. Abdul Rasaq and Shawal Anuar … it’s too painful to link you to the highlights video, but do check it out and you’ll see what I am talking about. Abdul Rasaq has been in great goalscoring form, so this comes as a huge surprise because it was a sitter.
This is not to say that we should crucify him for an error – he has done exceedingly well this season, and I sincerely hope that we fans can do our part to lift him up in the next game that he plays. On days when the team struggles to create an overwhelming number of chances, it is vital that we put away the chances we create.
Honourable mention for a big missed chance also goes to Maxime Lestienne, who did superbly well to break into the box near the end of the game, but perhaps should have squared it across goal instead of shooting at the near post. But I am sure we can forgive him considering his insane heroics this season.
Poor Game Management
This last point that I am going to make – this is a difficult one to make. I think we can accept that every club has off-days. This season, Albirex had an off-day against Tampines. Tampines had an off-day against Hougang. We had an off-day against Young Lions too. Nowhere near as slick as normal, chances not taken, looking a bit ragged on defence at the end – this is the time when you do the wise thing, and you start to manage the game. Keep it in safe areas, remain tight at the back, run it to the corner flag, win a few freekicks and throw-ins, etc. Of course, the best way to be safe is to score the second goal, but when it’s not happening, it’s not happening. Past the 90th minute, with a few minutes to go, it may be time to just play safe.
Instead, the ball came back and forth, and when we had the ball past the 3min of allotted time, we even tried to play Bernie Ibini in for a shot. Prior to that, Maxime also looked frustrated that the ball was not coming quickly enough to him, that the play was too slow. This was around the 90th minute. When he did get the ball, he tried a risky cross-field pass that was intercepted and led to a Young Lions chance. I understand the ambition of the players, and the frustration that they must feel, struggling to break down a Young Lions team they were expected to thrash.
However, sometimes you have to keep the bigger picture in mind, and perhaps Coach Risto could have told his charges to just manage the game out, instead of going hell-for-leather in search of a second goal.
Conclusion
I am glad there is a long break after this. In isolation, 2 losses and a draw from the first round of games is not the best, but it isn’t disastrous either. We’re still in the top 3, still within striking range. Performances in some of the games have been questionable though, and I think this long break should see Coach Risto working with the boys to try and improve their chemistry, and with that, hopefully their performances.
By the way, if anyone is keen to travel to Brunei to watch the Sailors take on DPMM, please let me know! A few of us are keen on travelling up and perhaps we can go over and cheer our Sailors on to victory.
Written by Eddy Hirono
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