[Post-Match Thoughts] Deserved Defeat and Is Jansen a Bad Ref? (LCS 1 Brunei DPMM 3)

Well, I could not be more wrong in my pre-match preview. The only thing I got right was that Hakeme Yazid is a superstar and we should be wary of him. However, I under-estimated the Bruneian outfit. Yes, there was a red card, and it is very tough playing with 10 men, but I felt that even in the period before Bailey Wright was sent off, DPMM were the slightly better team.

It was a very eventful game, and unfortunately, it was just a game where I felt everything that could go wrong, went wrong for us. The crowd (myself included) was incensed by Jansen Foo, and so not only will this article talk about the players on both sides, but it will definitely also touch on Jansen’s performance.

Tiredness + Sloppiness

I am gonna sound like a broken recorder soon, but I feel that some rotation was badly needed. Our players have played many games without changes and I think it really showed – as simple passes went astray and the touches were not as assured as they usually were. We also did not press with the same ferocity that we did against the likes of Tanjong Pagar and Young Lions. All 3 goals could be said to have been sloppy, while the red card was a direct result of some wayward passing.

It was something that sparked a bit of a debate in the SailorFanTalk Telegram chat, with some fans thinking that our depth options are not good enough, or that our players are professional athletes and should be able to handle a game every 3 to 4 days.

In the end, we did a poll and the results were clear in that the majority felt the squad could have done with a bit of freshening up. Especially with Brunei DPMM having played just 3 days ago, I think a little bit of freshness may just have been enough to tip the scales more in our favour. As it was, tiredness did take its toll, and we lacked the sharpness necessary to break down DPMM. To make matters worse, Diego had to be subbed off in the second half, and Coach Ranko said it was because he was carrying a small injury and he wanted to rest him for the weekend’s match against Albirex. We hope he’ll be fine.

For supporters who said that our depth options are not good enough, I think I would humbly disagree with them. Someone like Zulqarnaen Suzliman (Mamat) in particular would perhaps have been perfect for this game. Hafiz Nor’s tricky situation re: potentially picking up his 4th yellow card meant it was a perfect opportunity for him to get some minutes and inject some freshness into the backline. For 2 of the goals, I think we were undone by a lack of pace in the backline, and perhaps if Mamat had played, his energy and pace might have given us a better chance at defending those goals. Of course, it calls back to mind his monster defensive performance against Geylang Intl some months back, where we had this to say –

Also, while chasing a game and with 10 men, would Haiqal Pashia and Rusyaidi Salime not have been good enough options to bring on? As it was, Mamat was given 10min of gametime, while Haiqal and Rusyaidi were not given any gametime. Once it is clear that the match was not gonna be won, it might have made sense to try and preserve some legs for the Albirex game. If there is such little trust in the bench options, and an unwillingness to use them in any capacity, I do worry. In the short term, I worry about our chances against Albirex this weekend, in the medium term I worry about our squad rotation taking into account the Spurs game (a separate article will be written about this), and in the longer term I worry about how our squad will cope with all the AFC Champions League games.

Missed chances

Sigh. Maxime’s missed penalty, the 1-2 in front of goal where Maxime squared to Diego and Diego’s shot was cleared off the line. That one conjured up images of our goal against Daegu. The score was still 1-0 then by the way, so had that gone in, it would have been 1-1 and Bailey might not have got sent off. Maxime and Diego have saved us plenty of times this season, so let’s not dwell on this – they are entitled to off-days. Shit happens. I wonder if this is the only game this season where we have scored but Maxime and Diego did not contribute to the goal tally (whether with a goal or an assist).

DPMM were very, very, very good

Sometimes when doing these post-match thoughts, I tend to fixate quite a bit on how badly the Sailors played, and what we could have done differently. This match is perhaps a little different because I thought that DPMM were excellent. Besides Hakeme in attack, I thought Farshad Noor (Afghan national team captain) was brilliant in midfield, winning 9 of 15 of his duels, and making 5 interceptions. His defensive work was really good, and he popped up everywhere to help put small fires out before they could do any damage. He could even count himself unlucky not to have scored, with a late effort that hit the bar.

Elsewhere in the team, Helmi down the left was also a real menace all game, with his fresh legs allowing him to not only make offensive runs, but also help in DPMM’s defensive efforts. This is what rotation can do for you – Helmi only played one half in the previous game.

Hakeme was a livewire all night and it was clear that he was instructed to try to beat the offside trap at every opportunity. He would linger in an offside position near our defensive line, and then make a sharp darting run back onside (either in front of our defenders, or into his own half) before sprinting clear to receive a through pass. His goal to make it 2-0 – well, it was brilliant. People shit on Lionel for being outpaced, but in fact, I feel that not enough credit is given to Hakeme for being able to sprint half the length of a field and yet have the calmness and composure to slot it into the near post as he did.

Given that DPMM had played barely 3 days ago, they knew they had to slow down the pace of the game in the second half, and they did. Their players went down “injured” in the 70th, 72nd, 78th, 84th, 90th and 94th minute of the game. 6 times in 20 minutes. I don’t blame them for that – that’s just smart management of the game given that they had the lead and were tired as well from the Albirex game. But you know who is supposed to add on the time? Yes, the ref, which brings me to my next topic.

Did Jansen Foo have a bad game?

Time-wasting and the crazy stoppage time awarded

Jansen was booed and whistled by the crowd for large parts of the game. Some of it of course, was the crowd taking out some of their frustration at the game result on him, but I think there are some incidents where he could have done much better. Let’s start with what we ended the last paragraph with – addition of stoppage time. Jansen and his refereeing team were woeful in this regard. Both halves I felt something was really wrong with the time added on (4min and 3min respectively), and I remembered that against Geylang, a similar situation occurred, also when Jansen was refereeing – take a look at what we wrote back then (even though we did eventually win the game) –

This time, to ensure that I wasn’t just overthinking things, or being biased against Jansen, I decided to do some investigative work to see exactly how much stoppage time should have been awarded.

As you can see, a total of 7 min indicated for stoppage time is an insult to the intelligence of the fans watching the game. I didn’t even have to include the long time spent on goalkicks, corners, throw-ins etc. All I did was count for VAR checks, injuries, and goal celebrations. 7 min indicated when it really should have been a total of 16 min added on. If you think that’s ridiculous, I will direct you towards two famous football men (one of them in Singapore at least) – Pierluigi Collina (world-famous referee) and Bernard Tan (FAS President), who had this to say.

These comments were from the Qatar World Cup half a year ago, and Collina was trying to explain the global approach towards awarding more stoppage time to ensure more actual football is played, rather than allow time-wasting to become a thing. These comments were then echoed by Bernard Tan after a game between Tampines Rovers and Hougang United earlier this year.

So, really, if the IFAB says this, and if the FAS President concurs, then why was a different approach being used by Jansen and his refereeing team two nights ago? Questions for FAS to answer.

The red card, the LCS penalty and what should have been a DPMM penalty

I realise this has been a really long article to read already, so I will try to be briefer in this part of the analysis.

The Red Card for Bailey – I felt it was a red card. Bailey Wright was put in a shit position because of the two wayward passes before that, and I think instinctively he impeded the striker once he realised he was in a bad position. The striker would have been through on goal, and if the roles were reversed, I would have wanted the DPMM defender to be sent off. Good decision by Jansen and his team to eventually award the red card. I cannot complain about this one.

The LCS Penalty – tough one. I really do not think I would have given this penalty. In the stadium, it did look like a pen, but on replays, it seems quite clear that the defender got the ball and not the man. Ultimately, it mattered little because Maxime missed the penalty, but I think Jansen and his team made the wrong decision here – pretty shocked that the VAR team did not call for an on-field review.

61st Min Penalty Shout – DPMM had a penalty shout in the 61st minute when Anu looked to have fouled Hakeme in the box. Go take a look at some of the replays of this incident – I think you will agree with me that the Sailors are a bit lucky not to have conceded a penalty there. Again, I think it’s the wrong decision. DPMM should have had a penalty. (check out 62:35 here)

Control of the Game

There was one occasion when a DPMM player went down, the stretcher came on, and before play restarted, I saw Jansen urging the player to go off the field. The player ended up staying on the pitch, ignoring Jansen’s instructions. Jansen did not do anything after that. This happened around the 70th min mark. I was incensed, and many other fans were as well.

How could Jansen just give up when he had asked the player to get off the pitch after the player went down injured? However, a quick check of the rules shows that actually Jansen was wrong to even ask the player to go off the pitch –

The player needs to go off only if he requires treatment, so the player was well within his rights to stay on the pitch. Of course, it’s frustrating for fans to see this, but I guess that is why it is so important to add on the right number of minutes for stoppage time, to allow such time-wasting antics to be stamped out.

On top of this, Jansen I felt also contributed to the growing angst in the game with some of his decisions, such as this one below, where a player went through the back of Maxime, but received no yellow card –

Smaller incidents such as not calling play back when the offside flag was raised late after Sailors had already taken the ball up and were trying to counter-attack, and whistling for fouls after perfectly legitimate tackles (such as Adam Swandi’s in 19th min) stopped the Sailors momentum and frustrated the fans.

In sum, I would say that Jansen has definitely had better games and if I were to give him a grade for how he did this game, it would be a D+ at best.

Conclusion

Despite a large part of my thoughts being dominated by thoughts about Jansen Foo, I have to say that DPMM deserved their victory 100%. They were the smarter, hungrier, and more careful team on the day, and could have even had more goals after the red card to Bailey Wright. Even though I complained about the stoppage time, I think it’s fair to say that the Sailors didn’t really look very dangerous and maybe even if we had 10 more minutes, we might not have scored another goal.

This defeat is obviously a huge blow to us given our title ambitions. If we lose again this Sunday, I think we can safely say that we are not going to win the title. However, perhaps a tough game is exactly what we need now. We enter Sunday’s game as the underdogs surely, after this performance, and maybe that’s what the players need – perhaps the pressure got to them in this one.

And so ends this long and angry and sad post. Let’s hope for better this Sunday. COME ON YOU SAILORS.

Written by Eddy Hirono

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