October 2023

I am writing to you from Korea. LCS has put us up in a nice cosy hotel right in the heart of Jeonju, where tomorrow’s action will take place. I will admit first that this preview may not be as useful to you as some of the other preview articles put out in the past. The reason for this is that I was not able to ask any of the Korean football experts to comment on their team in a meaningful way. I don’t think anyone is under any illusions about the magnitude of the task that faces our Sailors tomorrow. There is a huge gulf between the standard in the K-League and that of the SPL. However, in the wise words of Singaporean singer Linying – “we did it before, and we’ll do it again”. We faced K-League side Daegu twice last year and came away with 3 points, impressively beating them 3-0, before losing narrowly in the torrential rain 2-1. Could we do it again? Let’s dive into the preview. The Mad Green Boys If the following paragraphs about the fans sounds very complimentary, please forgive me for being nice to our very hospitable hosts. It’s 1am here in Korea and they have taken us out and about for the past 6h, first to a charcoal-grilled chicken place, and then to a seafood place. Copious amounts of alcohol were also consumed at each place, making the writing of this article a little harder – but write it I must, so let me tell you why this is relevant. The results achieved against Daegu were fantastic, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that out of the 6 fixtures in this group, this is by far the hardest. Supporters can sometimes be the 12th man, and numerous studies have shown that referees tend to give better decisions to home teams due to the pressure and atmosphere created by the crowd. The biggest difference between beating Daegu last year and attempting to beat Jeonbuk this year is an actual home advantage enjoyed by Jeonbuk. This is incontrast to last year’s centralised tournament held in Buriram. Part of the advantage stems from the Mad Green Boys, who are permanently given the no. 12 in the squad, underlining their importance to the team. I watched on TV their game against Daegu – away from home, and they were LOUD. It is no wonder that they were voted by their fellow fans as the most intimidating set of supporters in the K-League in 2016. There’s something quite intimidating about a large bunch of people in green jumping up and down with wild abandon, and having witnessed first-hand their enthusiasm and vigour throughout this evening’s festivities, I can say for certain that the Crew is gonna be outshouted for sure tomorrow. While the numbers may not be as impressive as for weekend games, I expect a healthy number to still turn up and create a formidable wall of green. It will be intimidating. Jeonbuk’s Struggles This Season Tipped by many to be the winner, and automatically assumed by most to challenge, Jeonbuk have been disappointingly off the pace. Their attack in particular, seems to have suffered following the departure of former Swansea forward Modou Barrow. He notched 13 goals and 8 assists for Jeonbuk in his final season, from a mere 28 games. That is not easy to replace. His style of play also helped to create chances and relieve the pressure for his team because his supreme pace meant that teams dared not press as high up. You add to that the mid-season departure of Cho Gue-sung to the Danish league, and then it becomes even more telling why the attack has sputtered this season. If the name rings a bell, Cho was the Korean striker who scored 2 goals against Ghana at the World Cup in 2022, announcing himself to the world. Of course, they still have Gustavo, and other attacking threats. However, their scoring numbers fill me with 1% of hope that perhaps we can do well to shut them out. You be the judge – Remember that Cho Gue-Sung is no longer there, and Gustavo is not a striker who can create his own chances upfront too. However, given adequate service in the box, he is absolutely deadly, so we have to keep a close eye on him. It is fair to say that we are lucky they are not the force they were last year, or in the years prior, where they made mincemeat of Tampines Rovers. How will the Sailors line up? I think the squad pretty much picks itself. For me, the only doubt would be whether Shawal Anuar features after his superb cameo at the weekend. If you go with 5 at the back, that necessarily means you need 2 central midfielders and those will be Rui Pires and Anu. That leaves 3 spaces up top and it will not be surprising for LCS fans to see Diego Lopes, Lestienne and Zivkovic picked as the starters. Having watched Jeonbuk play, they like to press very high onto their opponents. Led by Boateng in the middle, they tend to want to snap into challenges in or around the penalty area. This of course leads to turnovers – something that we need to watch out for. However, it also gives us an escape route. Should we be able to evade the press somewhat, we can try to go long, and hope that there is enough space behind the backline for our forwards to deal with. This is where perhaps keeping Shawal on the bench may help. He very seldom lasts the whole game anyway, so it’s good to keep him in reserve, and then release the secret weapon against tiring legs in the second half. One thing I noticed while watching Jeonbuk this season is that they seem to have an inability to clear their lines properly when they defend their goal . I think

It’s been a while since we last saw our Sailors in action. More than 2 weeks ago, we managed to come away with a win in Hong Kong that reinvigorated our slim hopes of making it to the latter rounds of the AFC Champions League. While us supporters have had a chance to really kick back, relax, and bask in the warm glow of the away win, the players have not had such a luxury. Do we rotate and give us the best chance in Korea, or do we try our best to effectively sew up qualification in the Singapore Cup so the last game takes on less significance? 4 Games in 17 Days Of the 25 Lions called up to play the two matches against Guam, 10 were from the Sailors, and 9 featured. The only player who did not see any gametime was Zharfan. This has been a hectic time for these players. Let’s take a look at their schedule since the Kitchee game. 4 October – Kitchee v Sailors 12 October – Singapore v Guam 17 October – Guam v Singapore 21 October – Sailors v Tanjong Pagar Should our national team players feature again, it might be a case of 4 games in 17 days, along with 4 flights as well. That is a tiring schedule, especially taking into account he 13h journeys by air to and from Guam. The likes of Anu, Lionel, CvH, Mamat, Hariss, and Shawal saw significant gametime, and I do wonder if there is some temptation to give a rest to a few of them. However, given the injury and unavailability issues faced by the Sailors, it may not be feasible to rest all of them. One of the key figures that might dictate if people like Anu and Lionel may play is Bailey Wright. He has been out since early-September when he picked up an injury in a closed-door friendly against Albirex. Given that Anu, Lionel, and Hariss played many minutes against Guam and Kitchee, and Bailey hasn’t played at all, it would be ideal to let Bailey play – if he is fit. Is Bailey Fit? Plus Other Injury News Bailey Wright It’s really tough to say. Unlike Singapore’s favourite league, the English Premier League, injury news is very hard to come by as local clubs are often tight-lipped about player injuries and how serious they are. We are thus left to guess based on club training videos – a skill picked up through years of playing Fantasy Football (FF). For those unacquainted, FF is an online game where people pick players from various Premier League teams and sort them into a lineup of 11 players, and these said players then pick up virtual points based on their real-life performances in matches. FF is also a game taken way too seriously by people like myself, which thus results in crazy, irrational behaviour, such as looking for the littlest clues in training videos as to whether a player we picked is injured and will feature at the weekend. So, if you look at the training video below, scroll to around 2:30 and watch on for 10 seconds – you will see that Bailey Wright has resumed pitch training, and crucially, resumed pitch training in a group. However, of course, it must be said that that was a rondo/monkey training drill, which may not involve as much rigour as other drills which were not really shown. Nothing in the video shows Bailey doing anything that would really extend him as well, so it is hard to say if he will feature tomorrow. I guess we’ll see. If you don’t see Bailey, it’s cos his back is turned to the camera. Haha I am a psycho. Same applies for Pedro Henrique. While he cannot play tomorrow because he is not registered in our Singapore Cup squad, Coach Rankovic may be tempted to push one or two of Lionel/Anu/Hariss for the full 90 if he felt that Pedro Henrique was fit and ready to start against Jeonbuk on Wednesday. Kodai Tanaka This one’s not entirely relevant for tomorrow’s game but I just thought I’d comment on it. Kodai was injured on 9 March against Albirex. However, it was not until around the end of the month before he had his surgery. This can be seen from his post on 1 April, where he said he had his surgery two days prior. This is normal for ACL injuries – you cannot operate immediately. According to Dr. Andy Williams, an ACL reconstruction expert, you need to let the swelling go down and for the knee to go “quiet”, if not you risk adding to the trauma and in the long term, you may stiffen up the knee even more. So from 1 April till now, that’s about 6.5 months. You have seen from Kodai’s instagram posts that he has resumed training for quite a while already. While at first it was just solitary gym work, he has returned to the pitch to do solo training, and now he’s back in group training. As to the extent of how intense his training is, we can only guess from his posts and the training video above – but 6-9 mths is the usual timeframe. If you scroll to 4:31 – you will see that in a small-sided game, he comes sliding in to intercept a pass. To me, even though I am not an expert, I think this is a heartening sign. We definitely won’t see him against Tanjong Pagar, but maybe he’ll make it for the Jeonbuk game as a substitute? Let’s see if he travels with the team. It doesn’t seem like there’s any other injury news, so if Ranko is trying to more or less secure qualification tomorrow, this is perhaps a good chance to do it. Going for a Win to Secure Qualification A win will almost certainly put us into the semifinals. It is not mathematically confirmed of course, but let

Abit of a late one – have been so busy clearing work to make time to fly over to Hong Kong to support the boys, and rather interestingly I got lost for an hour earlier in the meandering streets of Central, Hong Kong. But I am safe now, and in the next couple of hours before I head to dinner with some Kitchee fans, here is my preview of tomorrow night’s must-win game. Why, Eddy, you may ask, is this a good time to play Kitchee? Head Coach Sacked! Kim Dong-Jin Steps In Or rather moved aside to a “youth development” position – but we all know what that means. Alex Chu was sacked. Up steps Kim Dong-Jin as interim head coach. He is also the Technical Director of Kitchee. If you think his name sounds familiar, it may be because you watched him as a player playing for South Korea at the 2006 World Cup, or winning the Europa League with Zenit St. Petersburg. The reason for the sacking was touted as a move to “bring harmony to the club in pursuit of major trophies“. I mean that could mean a lot of things – but given that it came on the back of a poor performance in a 4-1 defeat to closest title challengers Lee Man, and a 2-1 defeat to Jeonbuk, could mean that there is some dressing room disharmony. Kitchee fans have also told us that not only was Alex Chu redeployed, several backroom staff also faced the same fate. It is not a happy camp at the moment, and I don’t need to look too far away for an example of how dressing room disharmony or dissatisfaction with management can lead to a team performing below par on the pitch – Sailors Singapore Cup campaign 2022, anyone? One thing though, will a Korean interim coach mean that Kim Shin-Wook, our old friend, returns to the starting line-up and plays a pivotal role? Korean Konnection Kim Shin-Wook was always a player who divided opinion amongst the fanbase. He had his supporters, fans who loved his goals and how he would oblige fans who mimicked his celebration (dropping to his knees and pointing to the sky), and yet other fans who felt that LCS’s starting striker given our resources should be much better, or at least more mobile. He did score 24 goals in 35 games though – I think opinion about him would have been a lot better if Boris Kopentovic did not have such a brilliant season last year. At the end of the day however, I think all fans would probably be united in agreeing that Richairo Zivkovic has been an upgrade. But how has our Wookie fared since he transferred to Kitchee? Not well, apparently. Go take a look at the highlights from my interview with Kitchee fans Edmund and Tim – pretty scathing. Last season, Wookie finished with the now-overused 007 meme, as he recorded 0 goals and 0 assists in 7 appearances. (I say overused but yet I still use, lol) This season, he has only seen gametime against much inferior opposition. He took to the pitch and scored a hattrick against semi-pro opposition, and just last weekend, he played in a 6-2 victory in the league, but when he was subbed on, he managed to miss a penalty, and also the rebound (which would not have counted anyway because it came off the crossbar). Apparently he approached the hardcore fans and apologised to them for his performance and looked tearful. It pains me to say this because I’ve always liked him, but it’s not going well for sure. I tell you why I like this guy though – I think it takes some balls and also shows that the player cares if he goes to the fans and talks to them, knowing full well that they don’t have full faith in him. Prior to this season, he also cut short his summer break so that he could train more in a bid to raise his performances. However, even if Kim Dong-Jin gives him a chance and starts him against us (unlikely), I still think Kitchee may not be the force they were last year when they qualified for the knockout stages because Wookie is no DEJAN DAMJANOVIĆ. Big Dejan-Sized Hole in the Attack Kitchee qualified for this year’s ACL by virtue of them finishing first in their domestic league. They also won the treble, and usually treble-winners are kinda invincible, no? Well, even though they had Dejan Damjanović with them at the tail-end of last season, it was interesting to watch in an interview with Hong Kong football expert Christie Leung that she felt Kitchee only just barely clung on to win it at the death, and the performance was not convincing. And that’s with Dejan in attack! Why all this fuss about Dejan, you may ask. Well, Dejan Damjanović is only the top ACL goalscorer of all time. He is also a K-League legend. I will let his numbers do the talking for me. The pitch graphic is for number of appearances, the blue-ball graphic is for goals, and the green ball graphic is for assists. Just an insane player – and you consider that what he did for Kitchee was after he had turned 39 years old? Just madness. And he turned in solid performances in the ACL campaign too, not just in the domestic league. Christie Leung also mentioned in the interview that Dejan’s absence is compounded by Kim Shin Wook’s failure to step into his massive boots. The Kitchee fans had hoped that following the same blueprint in bringing over a K-League legend in Kim, might have led to similar success, but it was not to be. Kitchee’s performances this season have not been useful for me to analyse because the gulf in quality between them and the other Hong Kong sides (with the exception of Lee Man, which they lost to) means that there