November 27, 2023

This is gonna be a short one because, we qualified. End of the day, that’s all that matters. Secondly, we have got much bigger fish to fry – as mentioned in the preview, qualification was almost a certainty anyway, so the match against Hougang was about giving players minutes, making sure noone got injured and preparing for the big game against Bangkok United. About the second point – ensuring people didn’t get injured…  well there were one or two moments when the Hougang players may have crossed the line (imo), but thankfully Maxime is fine. Let’s dive into some quick thoughts. Lack of Motivation I usually hate to hear this as a reason being used by anyone who has lost a game, or did poorly in anything. Coach Ranko said that the performance in the first half wasn’t good because it was not easy for him to motivate the players given that they had such an important game in three days, and qualification was already more or less sewn up. Which is the football equivalent of saying “aiya this exam I never study, if I like you whole day stay library I also will get A lor lol”. In school, you’d fantasise about giving such people a tight slap across their faces for the blatant face-saving gesture, an excuse to hide behind for their poor performances. I mean, no one told you not to study right? Ok random rant over. So am I giving Coach Ranko a pass for essentially saying we didn’t win because we didn’t want to? Not really – I think he was being honest in his inability to get his players pumped up for this game. If anything, he was shitting on himself for failing to motivate them. I did however want to see some harsher words used for that lacklustre first half. It was one of the worst halves of football I’ve seen our Sailors play this year, and the fact that it came against a Hougang team shorn of some key players? Inexcusable. Let’s recap. No Krajcek, no Zulfahmi, no Shahdan. Yes I know we rested a few players, but Maxime, Diego and Richi played 90min. Winning can sometimes be a habit, so I was happy to at least see our Sailors give it a real good go in the second half, and come up with the equaliser in the end. If we’re going to have any chance in Bangkok, we’ll need to see that kind of intensity. So, why were we much better in the second half? Hougang Kicked Maxime Into Life First-half Maxime was not Maxime. It was the ghost of Maxime – recently-crowned Player of the Year Maxime dreaming of cutting in from the right wing and scoring, but in reality made to play left wing-back in a weird experimental formation. It wasn’t him at all. He didn’t offer any protection to the backline, and before too long, Coach Ranko swapped him back to his natural position. Second half is when he really came to life though. Hougang reached into the backpages of the Dark Arts manual and literally kicked Maxime back into life. I have to admit, as much as I loved seeing Maxime angry and taking the game by the scruff of the neck because he was so annoyed by Jordan Vestering’s series of micro-fouls and late tackles, my heart stopped a while when Maxime was writhing on the ground after a poor tackle by Hazzuwan Halim. Don’t take my word for it, as usual. Please watch 50:46. Please watch it and tell me that’s not at least a yellow card. In fact, some referees would even give a red card for that. Hazzuwan leaps through the air from the side with force, with studs showing and boots the ball away. It was reckless, out of control, and he’s a lucky boy because he made very little contact with Maxime. In my opinion, a definite yellow at least. This, coupled with Jordan Vestering leaving a boot in at every opportunity after the ball had long gone, lit a fire under Maxime’s butt, and in the end, he duly popped up with an assist to punish Hougang. I hope we beat Tampines in the semi-final, so that Maxime can continue punishing Hougang for their antics. What other antics, you might ask? Hougang Kicked the Sailors Fans Into Life Like the team, the fans were also a little lacking in motivation. The Crew tried their best, but first-half noise levels were nowhere near what we witnessed against Jeonbuk at Jalan Besar Stadium. However, that changed in the second half due to two factors – 1) the rough treatment dished out to Maxime (already discussed above), and 2) Takayama’s act of petulance on 55:07. You know the drill, go watch it yourself and decide whether you agree with me. It’s important to watch the build-up to the incident for the full context. Vestering puts in a strong challenge on Lestienne – which is not a foul in my opinion. Lestienne, angered by the series of challenges made by Vestering that went unpunished, reacts and shouts at Vestering. The fans go mad as well and start booing Vestering. Kazuma Takayama is indignant on behalf of his teammate, and throws his hands up in a show of frustration. A few seconds later, Diego Lopes miscontrols a pass and it rolls out. The whistle blows, Pashia stops chasing, and under no pressure, Takayama looks at the stands, and whacks the ball into the section full of away fans. Feel free to disagree with me, but that felt deliberate. It is a cheap shot borne out of frustration – and it could well have been dangerous. I spoke to the fans after the game and heard that it came very close to whacking someone flush in the face. He had time and space to clear it downfield, but nope this was not a miscued clearance or a panicked one – he took a look at the