May 19, 2023

Albirex are not a good team. They are a disgustingly good team. You probably didn’t pay good money just to hear me tell you this. Wait a minute, this website is free and you don’t pay at all lol – but the point remains. You do not need me to tell you that Albirex are disgustingly good – but let me take a few paragraphs to tell you how monumental this task ahead of us is. Attack is the Best Defence, but Defence is also the Best Defence, and Fouls are also the Best Defence What the heck was that long sentence that doesn’t seem to make any sense? Patience, my friend, read on. Albirex are the top-scorers in the league, and also boast the best defensive record. They’ve scored 30 goals, 4 more than the Sailors who are the 2nd-highest scorers, despite playing one game less. They have also conceded 3 goals only. THREE GOALS. After playing 9 matches, to have conceded only 3 goals is frankly ridiculous. Of course, Hassan Sunny’s addition has boosted their backline with experience, and also a fearsome shot-stopping goalkeeper, but according to the SPL website, Hassan Sunny has only had to make 19 saves. Compare that with Zharfan having to make 43 saves, and I think you can draw your own inferences about how much protection the 10 outfield players are giving to their respective custodians in goal. Their attacking prowess is no fluke as well. They have the most shots in the league, and the most shots on target in the league. I’ll throw in another interesting stat for you – despite their superb form, Albirex are also the team with the highest number of fouls in the league. Their tally of 133 fouls in the league is the same as DPMM’s, but DPMM has played a match more, so the foul-iest team in the league is Albirex! Bet you wouldn’t have thought that. This is a purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness. To confound your mind even more – despite having the most fouls in the league, they have the fewest yellow cards, and no red cards. A purring attacking side capable of mixing it up with a tinge of dirtiness but also disciplined enough to avoid censure from the referees? Wow, end me now. Dangermen Usually when I do previews, I like to talk about some of the dangermen in our opponents’ squad. It’s … kinda hard to do this here. Do we go with Seia Kunori? The top-scorer with 7 goals? Keito Komatsu with 5 goals? The commanding midfield of Albirex? Hassan Sunny in goal? Old man Tadanari Lee with his bags of experience (and also 4 assists, the most in Albirex)? Riku (who we’ve written an article about earlier this season)? It’s really impossible to pick just one, or even two dangermen to focus on. And that poses a problem for us. Our defence has not been the most commanding this season. We’re obviously still missing Pedro Henrique and we’ve conceded 15 goals from 10 games so far. It’s the 3rd-best record in the league, but nowhere near good enough if we have serious ambitions of winning the title. This defensive porosity has also resulted in us dropping 4 unnecessary points against Young LIons and DPMM Brunei. I posed the question to one of our supporters last week – if we cannot keep out DPMM and Young Lions, what hope do we have against Albirex? The fan (Ryan) said what he needed to say – that though the chances are slim, there’s still a chance. I guess because the ball is round, anything can happen, at the end of the day it’s 11 v 11. There, I’ve thrown out all the football cliches I can throw out. Back to the point of dangermen – when a team doesn’t have just one or two dangermen, it becomes very difficult to try and keep them out. For Albirex, if they keep Maxime and Diego quiet, chances are they will get the win. Of the 26 goals scored by the Sailors, only 4 of those goals did not feature either a goal or an assist by the dynamic duo. If they can work out a plan to shut the two down, we are in some serious trouble. We have a lot of talent on the pitch, so I hope that Coach Risto will come up with a plan to get the local boys more involved as well. For us, it will be difficult if we try to focus on any of their dangermen – they’re ALL dangermen. If we focus too much on a few of them, we lose sight of the others, and that could be fatal. Not all Doom and Gloom We have Maxime in the form of his life. Top of the scoring charts, top of the assists charts, and always capable of some magic. We have Mamat looking back to his best and hopefully coming back this game. We have Diego still chipping in with assists. We have quality off the bench that we can call upon. If Tampines can beat them, then there is no excuse for us to not believe that we can as well. We have a 100% home record as well, so maybe there’s something magical about the Bishan pitch? I am really clutching at straws here, I am freaking afraid of Albirex lol. Conclusion I always back my team and I am always optimistic, but I honestly find it hard to be optimistic about this one. I’ll still of course be supporting the team and willing them on to victory (from Japan, sad that I am not around for this match), but I’ll be happy with a point here. A defeat leaves us 7 points behind, and they will still have a game in hand. In a shortened season this year, that will be almost impossible to come back from. We have also not