August 2, 2023

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 –