August 2023

This article should really have come out earlier but WordPress will be the death of me. Usually reliable, it decided to crash while I was 99% done with the article and typing my concluding thoughts. How very annoying – and so I have to start all over again. (Yes, I did save along the way, but even the backups are gone – what a tragedy.) It’s not often that someone can get 2 goals and 3 assists in the game and yet not be the focus of an article, but that’s exactly what will happen to Maxime Lestienne in this article. I will still of course, touch a little on Maxime first before talking about Richairo and the rest, so let’s go. The New Normal Yikes. Guess it has been a while since you saw that dreaded phrase. At first, when it was used during the Covid-19 period and I first heard it, I thought to myself, “well isn’t that such a succinct and elegant way to describe the pandemic!” But after a while, when everyone around you and in the supermarket and in the coffeeshop started saying “new normal” and even the mynahs cooing sounded like they were cooing “new normal”, it got a little tiresome and I wanted to puke whenever I heard it. What has this got to do with Lestienne? I think we are spoiled, haha. Lestienne is now on 25 goals and 21 assists this season and that’s just…insane. It’s calculator time again, so that’s 46 goal contributions in 23 games, making it 2 goal contributions a game. Just madness. It’s the 8th time this season that he has recorded both a goal and an assist in the same game. For him, impressive feats are “normal”. And that probably explains why even on a day when he got 2 goals and 3 assists, my mind was dominated by Richairo, who himself picked up 2 goals and 1 assist. Long may this “new normal” last. LCS, please put a damn contract in front of him and let him sign it! Richairo = Curry No, not the former NBA Most Valuable Player. The more important one. You know how when you eat Nasi Padang or Caifan, what is important is whether the rice is cooked well, whether the vegetables are fresh and nice, and whether the meats selected are tender. But to really elevate the dish, you need a good curry on top of it. It’s why you flirt with the Nasi Padang makcik, it’s why you tell the Caifan Uncle that his new watch very bright ah, Uncle, you strike TOTO is it Uncle? All you want is for them to smile to themselves and then just put 2 seconds more worth of curry onto your plate. Then you can bring it back to your seat and just whack and savour the curry as it makes every component of your dish taste better. Yes? Yup, Richairo Zivkovic is the curry. You won’t die if you don’t have it – your nasi padang is still nasi padang, your caifan is still caifan. There’s still a bit of gravy in those other dishes, your beansprouts, your sweet and sour chicken. There’s still gravy – the dish still works. In football terms, your team will still function – your team still works. But Richairo is different gravy, man. Some of you may know that I felt the criticism of Kim Shin-Wook last season was harsh. I felt he drastically improved his goalscoring ratio here as compared to that he achieved in other leagues, and he looked like he was genuinely trying his best. That was last season. This season, we all feel that Abdul Rasaq is doing a great job upfront, and has reached double digits (more on this later). But when you look at Richairo in full flight, it’s really a sight to behold. When he’s down the wings, I can tell you he must be a nightmare to defend. As someone who plays fullback quite a bit, the worst players to mark are those who are fast, can cross with both feet, can win the ball in the air, and can shoot with both feet. He is all of the above. Watch him in games – his left-footed crosses are better than some players’ right-footed crosses even though it is his weak foot. This game alone, both goals he scored with his weak foot, and the first of those goals was an absolute rocket into the top corner. While the team was still doing quite well even before he joined us, since he has joined us, every attack looks that bit more dangerous. Since he has started in the team, the team has achieved a slightly higher goals per game average. Of course, there is a very small sample size involved so please take this stat with a pinch of salt. We spoke with Richairo after the game, and it was funny how he took his own goal with good humour, but also very interesting to see that he was quite impressed with some of the attacking combinations during the game, especially on the counter. He also spoke about how this would be useful in the Champions League if we face good opposition. Check it out for yourself! Abdul Rasaq – Young Lion Is there anything noteworthy about this table of top 10 goalscorers and assisters in our league? You may notice that out of the 20 names here, only 3 are Singaporean – Abdul Rasaq with 10 goals, Joel Chew with 9 assists, and Adam Swandi with 7 assists. This is not the time and place to examine all factors about why this is so, because that would need a long article with tons of input from various sources. We just want to take this opportunity to congratulate Abdul Rasaq on what is a very impressive achievement. He started this season as the no. 2 striker behind Kodai Tanaka, and when given the chance to

Tampines Rovers again put us upstairs in the top tier, but it was them who ended up in tears at the end of the night. After an electrifying performance, especially in the first half, we went in 3-0 ahead at half-time, and I think many will be forgiven for thinking that it was game over. Credit to Tampines Rovers of course for making it slightly difficult, but when our attack is in this type of form, it is very hard to stop us from picking up maximum points, and so it proved, as Maxime Lestienne and Richairo Zivkovic picked up a hat-trick and a brace respectively, to see us score 5 goals at Our Tampines Hub. Electrifying. This season, we have scored 5 or more goals 5 times – 10 April 2023 – Hougang 0 LCS 5 1 June 2023 – Balestier 4 LCS 5 1 July 2023 – Tanjong Pagar 1 LCS 7 31 July 2023 – LCS 5 Balestier Khalsa 2 4 August 2023 – Tampines 2 LCS 5 Amazingly, none of these 5 times was against Young Lions, the whipping boys this season. These goals have contributed to our very-impressive tally of 68 goals. Electrifying. Not only is there quantity when it comes to goals, there is quality as well. And speaking of quality of goals, let’s start right there with Maxime’s performance and three goals. Electrifying. Chips Ahoy! (Maxime Loves his Chips) Yes, in case you were wondering about the relevance of using a picture of Chips Ahoy! cookies for this article, this part should explain it. Maxime is a Sailor. Sailors shout “Ahoy”. Maxime tried 3 chips against Syazwan Buhari and scored two goals. My tangled gluttonous mind immediately thought of chocolate chip cookies when I saw this happen. Yes I know, I am weird. Sorry not sorry. Moving on. As early as the 2nd minute, Maxime had already tried to chip Syazwan and was unlucky not to hit the target. It was Kyoga Nakamura who made the error, giving the ball away in the face of some heavy Sailors pressure. Without missing a beat, Maxime immediately hit the loose ball over Syazwan, but unfortunately over the bar as well. 1st out of 3 chips unsuccessful. The 2nd of 3 chips, in the 18th minute, was rather more successful. Tampines once again lost it in defence, and Lestienne robbed Yasir Hanapi who didn’t know he was right behind him. Once again, without missing a beat, and with just a very quick glance, Maxime utilises his left leg like a sand wedge (golfing term) to achieve just the right amount of height to get it up and over Syazwan for a lovely goal. 2-0, 18 min gone, Tampines are well and truly rocked. The audacity and quick thinking to chip it in from that range? Electrifying. The 3rd chip came as a result of some brilliant defensive work by Hariss to win possession in midfield. A quick measured ball over the top from Diego Lopes into the box sent Lestienne free, and with the keeper coming to close down the angle, Maxime chipped him. Now if that were me in that spot, I would’ve just admired how the ball arced nicely over Syazwan and get ready to celebrate. But not Maxime, he continues his run and when it comes off the post, he is in position to tap the rebound in. Elite. Hat-trick goal. Oh, and lest I forget, electrifying. Stadium Announcer for Tampines If by now, you’re wondering why I am using the word “electrifying” in almost every damn paragraph, it’s because days after the game and even though we won 5-2, I still cannot get over the fact that the Tampines Rovers stadium announcer described Boris Kopentovic’s penalty as “electrifying”. So let me address it now so that I can scratch that itch and the word “electrifying” won’t have to appear again. Now, if you think that I raise it up to say that the stadium announcer is shit – far from it. In fact, I give him a 9/10 because I think the energy was on point. In a game where there was nothing much for Tampines fans to get excited about, the 2nd goal after being 3-0 down needed some hyping up – the crowd was already excited at the tantalising prospect of a comeback, and the announcer had to feed the fire a bit more, to really get a rousing atmosphere going. What I especially liked was the repeated chant of “BORIS”, leaving the fans to fill in the blanks with shouts of “Kopitovic”. It is engaging, and it really got the crowd going. Of course, the small criticism I have is of the word “electrifying”. Someone buy the man a thesaurus or a dictionary so that a more appropriate word can be used there. How on God’s green earth is that penalty an “electrifying goal”? It was a good penalty, but you know, you’re expected to score those. Minor quibble! Still, major props to the stadium announcer, who probably won’t read this. Post-match I chatted with Brandon and Barry, and Barry said that he felt the announcer was doing a good job of delivering excitement to the fans, rather than just saying what he needs to say in a drab tone. Let’s see more of this at other stadiums! Pressing from the Front Look at these two images. You can see that the Sailors really tried to keep a compact block in the middle to force Tampines to play it wide. However, Tampines are very good passers and this season a lot of their success has come because they’ve dared to play even in congested middle areas. Usually this is aided by Kyoga Nakamura – who is a steadying presence in the midfield, always resisting the press with short sharp movements to manipulate himself into a position to get his team out of trouble and then to facilitate the attack. However, he did not have a great game, and

Not quite the Fibonacci sequence or the code to my safe, but 7-3-2-1 was the story of the day. I brought two friends to watch their first Lion City Sailors game, and I don’t think they could have picked a better game to come watch. One was an Olympique Marseille fan club member who I’d crossed swords with before in the Fan Club 5s League, while the other was someone who’d been in the sports industry for 20 years in Singapore but who has had rotten luck with clubs he supports – they always close down. Think Warriors, LionsXII, Tanjong Pagar United (before their revival), etc. It was fascinating watching the game, but it was also fascinating watching my invitees’ reactions as they couldn’t quite process what they were watching in that first half. Penalties given for what didn’t always look like penalties, a VAR check for an offence that occurred while I was still making my way into the stadium, missed penalties, some unconvincing defending from the Sailors, and a valiant Balestier side that just refused to accept that they were going to lose when they went down to 10 men. It was riveting stuff – when I interview people for SailorFanTalk – people sometimes know that we don’t run the kind of channel that profits off negativity, and so they try to say nice things, they try to gloss over some of the Sailors’ weaknesses, try to play up the Sailors’ effectiveness, etc, but when you watch people’ s faces, that’s where you get the truth. And the truth was that they couldn’t make sense of what they were watching. But now as we sit in the cold light of day – let’s go over some thoughts. Richairo’s Missed Penalty Richairo joins the ranks of Diego and Maxime of having missed a penalty kick this season. Thankfully, the penalty miss didn’t affect the result. It did however, affect the race between Ryoya Taniguchi and Maxime Lestienne for top-scorer indirectly. Given that the title is highly improbable now, I would have thought the team would do Maxime a favour and let him take the penalty, and help him boost his goal tally. It may also help him to continue exorcising some of the demons caused by the crucial penalty miss against Brunei DPMM. However, it was not to be, as Richairo stepped up and his effort was comfortably saved by Hairul Syirhan. Not quite sure what the decision-making was here, but it would seem that in the pecking order, Richairo is no. 1, and Maxime is no. 2. If that’s the case, then Maxime is a “good soldier” who is willing to listen to team instructions even in the face of potential personal glory – that is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted. Remember Cavani v Neymar all those years back when Neymar was the new boy on the scene in Paris Saint-Germain? If that is not the case, and Maxime has just graciously allowed Richairo to take the penalty to boost his goal tally and get him firing, then that’s very admirable from him. His unselfishness knows no bounds – more on that later. Whatever it is, I know what I prefer – I hope for SPL games at least, his teammates allow him to rack up some more goals to push him past Ryoya. Maxime Continues Providing With 2 assists in this game, Maxime is now on 18 assists. 18 assists in 21 games. This time round, he got it with a swerving corner kick, and rather curiously, a shot attempt that was pushed out weakly by Hairul Syirhan into the path of Richairo Zivkovic, who slotted it in. I say “curious”, because I had no idea that a saved shot counts as an assist! I know in Fantasy Premier League terms, it is counted as an assist, but this is the first time I’ve seen a saved shot attempt count as an assist in the SPL. Someone please correct me if I am wrong! Leave a comment after this article or drop me a message on Telegram either through DM or in the SailorFanTalk Telegram chat. Whatever it is, there is just no catching Maxime in the assists category. His next closest challenger is Diego Lopes with 11 assists, and after that it’s all single digits. Huge props to Joel Chew and Daniel Goh by the way for being the only Singaporean representatives in this table! Old boy Shahdan would certainly be on this list as well if not for his injury, but I digress. Zharfan Rohaizad What a monster save from the spot. ‘Nuff said. Lionel “Kompany” Tan Some similarities to walk you through for this one – let’s compare Lionel Tan’s strike v Vincent Kompany’s strike against Leicester City in the 2018/2019 season. Watch Lionel’s interview with us after the game. Bailey Wright Whenever a centreback gets a brace, it’s always noteworthy. So it’d have been criminal if we allowed this article to end without mentioning Bailey Wright. He absolutely dominated at setpieces, and scored two headers – one of which I am gonna call a “wrecking ball” header. You know which one I am referring to. It’s the first one, where he comes in like a bullet train, or a guy speeding because he really really really needs the toilet. From that range, all he really needs is to glance it in. But no, not our Bailey. He properly blasted it in with his head – if that makes sense. The perfect combination of neck muscles and momentum giving him the wrecking ball effect. He doesn’t score many, but he got 2 this time, in his birthday week as well. What impeccable timing. However, it wasn’t all rosy in Bailey-land, and he himself admitted in an interview that he had a bit more to work on his game. Check out what he had to say below (full link here) – Him saying it means I don’t have to say it –