It is not often that we can say a team that picked up 3 yellow card and 2 red cards were not punished adequately, but this is a view that I hope to be able to defend in this post-match thoughts article. While the Sailors picked up an expected win, and have one foot in the semi-finals, I think some of Tanjong Pagar’s conduct was very unsavoury, bordering on being thuggish. Especially in light of recent events involving referees, I hope that something can be done by FAS to warn all teams in the league against such conduct. Let’s dive right into it.
Shakir is a Lucky, Lucky Boy
Quite how Shakir Hamzah escaped a red card this game is beyond me.
First Incident
He should have received a yellow card as early as the 10th minute of the game. He slid in on Richairo Zivkovic and conceded a penalty after his trailing leg swept our star striker off his feet. While I can understand a player debating with the referee about whether the penalty call was legitimate, I don’t think we can excuse this. You be the judge.
In my opinion, the aggression with which he runs to the referee, and then repeatedly encroaches on his space, forcing him to first backpedal, and then second, put out a hand, is worthy of a yellow card. I was quite surprised the referee didn’t give it.
The hand out should have been the final warning. It effectively says to Shakir – back off, or you’re receiving a booking. Instead, Shakir repeatedly walks towards the back-pedalling referee, pushing his body into the protective hand of the referee. All this time, the verbal volleys don’t stop, even as his teammates try their best to stop him. Thuggish behaviour.
Second Incident
His anger didn’t stop here. A few minutes later, still seething at the penalty award earlier, Shakir kicks out at Maxime Lestienne even though Maxime was already dribbling away from goal after a quick throw from Izwan (more on this later). No intention to get the ball, he just swings a leg to the back of Maxime’s calf and catches him. Thuggish behaviour.
A deserved yellow, nothing more.
Third Incident
In the 51st minute, Anu mistimes a tackle and seconds later, Hami commits a tactical foul on Shahrin Saberin who is breaking away at pace through the midfield. Both were challenges worthy of a yellow card, and the referee rightly gave yellows to both of them.
However, once again, Shakir runs after the referee from a real distance away, and leads a pack of Jaguars to hound him. See the gif for yourself below. Look out for Shakir steaming in from the left.
In fact, he comes in with so much pace he almost knocks the referee off-balance a little. The referee can also be seen to be wiping his face, so I suppose the shouting was so intense that he felt some saliva come onto his face. Again, thuggish behaviour.
He is already on a yellow card at this point – so how does he escape a second yellow card for this? Surely the referee cannot be encouraging such behaviour.
Just a week ago, Wan Tung Han, a senior referee was assaulted on the pitch after one of his decisions angered a player in an FA Cup match between East Coast United and GFA Victoria. That was in an amateur game. Now, let me make it clear, I am not condoning it just because the player who assaulted the referee was not a professional. I hope the police deals with him accordingly.
But here’s some food for thought for us all – if our senior professionals are acting with such disrespect to the referees, then what kind of example are they setting for the rest of us weekend warriors who play in Sunday league games or amateurs in IWL? How about kids back home who think that this is acceptable?
I hope the FA has a chat with clubs to ensure that there is no repeat of such scenes. After the chat, that’s fair warning, and if any player persists in such behaviour, they should be awarded a yellow card. A signal needs to be sent to try to stamp such behaviour out at all levels.
Tanjong Pagar Should Change Their Animal
Also, on a slightly light-hearted note, perhaps TPU should consider changing their animal. They are not jaguars, because …
The screencap would suggest that they very much hunt in packs – it almost looks like the referee is handing out free Taylor Swift tickets or something. I repeat the points I made above about the example it sets for players all around Singapore.
Tajeli Loses His Cool
I’ve left the worst of the thuggishness for last. Tajeli completely loses his cool in the 88th minute, kicking out at Richairo, HARD, for absolutely no reason at all. Richairo had intercepted a loose touch from him, and there wasn’t any hint of a hard tackle or anything – it was 100% clean.
I don’t quite know why Tajeli did it, but I can accept that a player sometimes loses his cool and does something inexplicable. I guess this is one of those occasions. He let his team down because they now lose him for the rest of the Cup. With Blake also suspended for their final group game, they have managed to turn a comfortable situation in the group into a real disaster.
Richairo picked up a deserved yellow card for his retaliation, but I would say it takes a real saint to not be affected by a crazy challenge like this. I am glad he did not do more.
Blake’s Yellow Cards
His first yellow card was an interesting one. The commentator referred to it as a completely needless one, and characterised his action to push Izwan as one intended to antagonise the keeper. I don’t think it was that simple.
Blake is usually a combative player but I believe what he was doing was to try to stop Izwan from launching a counter-attack.
He had already seen evidence of its potency earlier in the half. In the 8th minute, Hafiz Nor sprints up the right wing, and Izwan launches a massive kick to the space in behind the leftback. It was a pinpoint kick that turned defence into attack.
In the 14th minute, a dangerous corner kick is caught well by Izwan, and without even pausing to think, he threw it firmly to Maxime Lestienne who was waiting for it, and a counter-attack took place, which led to Shakir hacking the brilliant Belgian down.
A bit of gamesmanship from Blake, but not entirely senseless. Perhaps he could have been less blatant about his attempts to block off Izwan.
His second yellow card was 200% deserved – I am surprised that having had the half-time break to cool down, he immediately went and got himself sent off with a rash challenge on Diego Lopes. He knew he had made a mistake and walked off without much protest. He must have been very angry with himself because he threw a bottle angrily once he was off the pitch.
Prior to his dismissal, the Sailors were a little tentative in their approach, finding it hard to break down TPU. Blake’s dismissal did us a great favour. We managed to find much more space, and set the stage for Shawal to steal the show.
Supersub Shawal
Shawal had travelled and played plenty in the past fortnight, featuring in both games against Guam, a 13-hour journey away. When we spoke to him, he confirmed that he was surprised he played 45min, and that he was actually very tired.
On a day when we badly needed inspiration from the bench, he provided it in spades though. When Adam Swandi played the ball into the box with the scores at 1-1, I didn’t actuallly think Shawal was going to be able to make any meaningful impact on the ball because it was played slightly behind his stride, but he managed to contort his body and volley it into the ground and into the roof of the net. A great goal.
His next two goals were comparatively simple tap-ins, but to be there in the right position at the right time? Well done, him, especially after he had taken some criticism from some Singapore fans for his performance against Guam in the home leg. He almost managed to get an assist as well, when his pinpoint cross was somehow put onto the bar by Maxime in the 68th minute.
We will definitely need Shawal’s pace on the break against Jeonbuk, so here’s hoping he’s getting a good rest in Korea now and will be fit and firing come Wednesday!
Conclusion
At the end of the day, despite the sour taste in the mouth after the unsavoury events, we achieved what we wanted to do, and put ourselves in with a greaat chance of qualifying for the semi-finals. Barring a catastrophic collapse in our last game of the group stage against Hougang where we lose by 5 or 6 goals, we should be in the semi-finals.
The next thing we would have wanted to achieve was to come out of this game unscathed on the injury front. This is where it gets sad.
When I saw Bailey’s name on the bench, I was a little happy as it meant potentially that he would feature in the second half to get a bit of match fitness ahead of Jeonbuk. In a match where we are likely to need lots of defensive effort, having one of our most experienced defenders available would have been a huge boon. Alas, it was not to be, as he seems to have suffered a recurrence of his injury after straining to take a shot. Rest well, Bailey, hope to see you back soon.
Not much else left to say, the next article should be coming from Korea!
Written by Eddy Hirono
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