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 stands, and whacked it there.
Usually when it’s not intended, the player will put up a hand to apologise or show some concern for anybody who is stricken. Takayama walks away like nothing happened, probably embarrassed by what he had done. You shouldn’t take your anger out on the opposition fans. As a Japanese, I am ashamed of him. This is not how we are brought up.
Completely unnecessary and cowardly.
What about Jordan Vestering? His persistent tackles and tough play on Maxime? In my opinion, I think it is a lot more forgivable. He is dealing with the Player of the Year – he has to engage his dark side a little in my opinion. Nothing really wrong in my opinion. As fans, of course we have to make it sound like every tackle is attempted murder to try to get the player carded or sent off, but yeah, he did what he had to do.
Shawal the Spring Chicken
Yes, I know that “spring chicken” is a term used to refer to younger players, but in this case I am being quite literal by calling Shawal a spring chicken because that dude has some spring in him, man.
Not for the first time this year, Shawal scores with his head. Recently, we’ve also seen his jumping and heading come to the fore when he assisted Richairo against Jeonbuk.
It was an important goal. I think despite this game not mattering much to us, had we failed to get the equaliser, it would be a knock on our morale – leaving Diego, Richi, Max, on for 90min, adding Shawal Anuar and Adam Swandi to the picture, and yet not managing to score wouldn’t be great.
Many of you will remember Shawal’s sense of timing has been praised before by many, including Richairo. This was something he mentioned in the post-match interview after the Jeonbuk game.
Huge shoutout to Rhysh Roshan Rai who credited us for this interview when the topic of Shawal’s timing came up in the game after he scored. He then went on to say that SailorFanTalk does really good work. High praise from a giant in the industry like him!
Deadly Djordje
Just gonna reproduce here what we said in the preview. What was I thinking predicting that we’d get a clean sheet when I said this about Djordje?!
His goals have got Hougang some results, and we should be wary of him. He has 5 goals in his last 5 appearances, he has scored in his last 4 starts. That’s not even the most incredible part yet.
In those games, he has taken 10 shots, of which 5 were on target. All 5 were goals.
Deadly.
https://sailorfantalk.com/2023/11/24/preview-hougang-v-sailors-should-we-rest-the-whole-team/
Conclusion
It was a match we didn’t really care about, until we suddenly did in the second half because Hougang woke us up from our collective slumber – both the players and the fans.
End of the day, we qualified, and we face Tampines next in the Cup, which is gonna be fantastic – it always is!
But for now, our attention turns to Bangkok, and what a game that’s gonna be.
Preview out tomorrow! Sorry for the delays – been clearing work so I can fly off to Bangkok, and then there was the womens’ team securing back-to-back invincible league wins for two years in a row. Congrats once again to our amazing womens’ team.
While last year saw the Sailors take on the role as a traditional “rich club”, with deep benches and tons of experience everywhere you look, this season has been a lot more of a struggle, as our women failed to even put more than 2 players on the bench in several games, and we fielded girls who were 15 years old. Truly amazing achievement.
Bangkok next!
Written by Eddy Hirono
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