June 19, 2024

To add more variety to the SailorFanTalk website, there will be more and more articles written by guest writers. Ernest takes over the writing of this article. Enjoy! I’m here to write the post-match article while Eddy and Chin Heng rest up from their trip to Brunei. Whew, I’m glad that’s over. It has since been confirmed that DPMM’s next home game will be held at the Hassanal Bolkiah National Stadium, which was empty when our 2 friends (and Anatoliy – that’s 3 of them!) visited when the game was originally scheduled to be played. As alluded to by Eddy in his match preview, we have an advantage to play a game in a “neutral” venue against a potential title contender. Our opponents had to travel to Singapore and play in front of virtually no home fans. The last time they played at their home stadium in 2019, they only lost once at home and won the league. A silver lining if you ask me – perhaps silver for them this season. [Editor’s note – well played, you cheeky bastard] With a localised Albirex this season, the race for the top places could be closer than before and DPMM are a decent side that should not be underestimated. Coming into this game we were the only 2 sides left with a perfect record (albeit having played 2 games, while pretenders BG Tampines sit top after 4 games), so something had to give. Thy-off LCS and neutral fans alike were excited to see Lennart Thy’s debut, and we were treated to it from kickoff. He may have been a bit of an unknown quantity to the local audience, which is why the official SPL broadcast’s lineup graphic was confusing, to say the least. I’m sure Thy has the technical qualities to cut it as a number 10, but he was to be our focal point for this game. With Bailey Wright’s suspension, we started our foreign players in attack in a positive-looking side. Bart played between the lines, with Shawal and Maxime on either side of him. We purred over the trio’s brilliance against Young Lions, with Thy thrown in the mix we now have the most formidable attack in the competition (on paper). Lennart managed to clock 60 mins for this game, and despite not scoring I was impressed with his aerial prowess and two-footedness. Why the misses? Perhaps it was the Jalan Besar turf or the outstanding saves from Naumovski. There were 3 notable chances, when Lestienne put him clean through for a 1 on 1, a point-blank header from an Obren cross, and a left-footed volley from a knockdown. We needn’t be worried though, Thy has proved his ability to get on the end of good deliveries, and with the quality of his teammates the early signs are great. The floodgates will open. It’s worth noting that the man he was signed to replace, Richairo Zivkovic, did not register against DPMM on his debut but scored against Albirex in the next game. Will lightning strike twice? Here’s me making an early prediction of a brace from our number 9. Negative Football DPMM set up to defend from the off, as reflected in the full-time stats above. We had more shots on target than they had attempts. They relied on individual brilliance to move up the field, which to their credit their quality of players was on show – more on that later. While LCS had many golden opportunities in the opening half, DPMM’s major talking points would have been the brilliant saves the goalkeeper made and some unsavoury challenges that threatened to boil over. My first half notes read like this: It was all one way traffic, and despite DPMM’s tactics we fashioned many chances that should have been converted. The goalkeeper put on such a performance that during the interval, fellow fan Brandon quipped that there was probably witchcraft involved (haha). Believe what you will but we certainly had to keep up the momentum to have any chance of leaving with 3 points.  An aspect of the game I did not enjoy was the time-wasting involved. It felt like DPMM were not here to play football and a draw would have been a great result for them. The match officials certainly did not help matters, with lengthy VAR checks on the goals and ridiculous red card claims. We ended up with more bookings than our opponents which did not reflect the nature of the game. DPMM were not without their merits. Eyebrows were raised when they announced the signings of Julio Cruz and Miguel Oliveira, and they proved their quality here once again. Despite constant heckling from the Crew after an early coming together with Hami Syahin, I was personally impressed with Oliveira’s efforts. He came up with what would prove to be DPMM’s best chance in the first half, nutmegging Obren on the right wing before a sumptuous cross across the face of goal that fortunately evaded everyone. Had that been converted we might have been talking about another result today. The Mexican Julio Cruz then almost scored the best goal of the season thus far, with a left-footed knuckleball from all of 30 yards. Zharfan was off his line and the frame of the goal saved his blushes. A few inches lower and we would have conceded. It wouldn’t look out of place in a crossbar challenge compilation. Other than this, he acquitted himself well against the imposing Lionel and El Sicario, sometimes bringing the ball down and laying it off for his teammates, despite the attention of our No.4 and 5. Chances Go Begging Such was the quantity and quality of chances missed that I was begging the football gods for a miracle at half-time. Early in the first half, the quality of our attacking quadruplet was evident. Maxime dinked a delightful ball which eliminated 3 defenders instantly. Our No.10 then had time to control the ball mid-air, turn and face the goalkeeper, another