[Preview] Cong An Ha Noi v Sailors (Not Easy Opposition, But No Better Time to Face Them)

I must confess two things first before you read this preview.

First, I am typing this barely hours before I fly off to Hanoi and so the research is unlikely to be great. I have not packed either – I am starting to get used to this routine of having to clear as much work as I can before I fly off to support the Sailors in whatever part of the world. My suitcase-packing skills have greatly improved though! Chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, in and out in 10min.

Second, I don’t know a lot about V-League football, besides knowing that Vietnamese players, particularly those who play for the national team, are of a pretty high quality. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about why CAHN are probably a good team, but there is no better time to play them.

Their Season Just Started

Unlike our Sailors, who are thick in the middle of our season, CAHN’s season is barely 3 games old, 1 win in the Shopee Cup, 1 draw and 1 loss in the V-League. While their win against a second-string (but still strong) Buriram United is impressive, they looked very lacklustre in their domestic games.

A possible reason for this is that their new signings are still gelling. After all, it takes time for players to settle, and get used to each other. Maxime Lestienne was not an overnight sensation when he joined us – he too, took a while before becoming this absolute machine that he is now.

Another possible reason is match fitness – perhaps they really just need a run of games to get going. I am sure you will remember how our own Sailors started this season as well – the articles were very similar. Each article talked about how the Sailors were winning but unconvincing. Perhaps CAHN is going through the same thing too.

And then perhaps because of this need to gel, if you take a look at the highlights of their two league games so far, they look far from convincing in defence. Many times the defence is caught flat-footed, and they are just staring at each other, waiting for the other defenders to take action. This is hopefully something we can capitalise on.

Not as Many Foreign Players

V-League rules dictate that teams can only use up to 3 foreign players and 2 naturalised Vietnamese in domestic games. As such, you see that their squad contains only 4 foreign players. Jason Pendant may look like a foreign name but he has a Vietnamese mother, and when you realise his full name is Jason Pendant Quang Vinh, it starts sounding a lot more Vietnamese, don’t it.

To make matters worse for them, Grafite, their hero on Matchday 1 against Buriram sustained an injury and will not be available for this game.

So, we have more foreigners than them in our squad, and I think the better foreigners as well, if you just compare CVs. This should help to counter the advantage that CAHN FC has when it comes to the standard of the local players. Vietnam > Singapore is my simplistic analysis of this of course.

The Vietnamese Players

We are a bit lucky that star defender Doan Van Hau (19 caps for Vietnam) is injured for this one and doesn’t look likely to play.

But he’s definitely not the biggest star in the squad. Foreigner or local, it doesn’t matter, the shining star of this team is the Vietnamese Messi, Nguyen Quang Hai.

Captain of the team, the little magician has a wand of a left foot, and stands at 1.68m tall, so you can already see why the comparisons to Messi exist. Despite his height, he is a huge figure in Vietnamese football and Vietnam, in general. His recent marriage to Vietnamese influencer Chu Thanh Huyen was widely covered in Vietnam, and only served to boost his celebrity status.

His career seems to have not hit the heights that some have predicted in the past. Look at this list of achievements.

Superb achievements, but you will notice a distinct lack of accolades after 2021. His career has stalled a little, after his move to Pau FC, a French Ligue 2 side. That spell wasn’t as successful as his fans would have hoped, and he will now be looking to impress after coming back to the V-League.

In the games this season, he has shown his creativity and consistent delivery. He already notched one assist, and but for poor finishing from his teammates, could easily have had a couple more. He is certainly the dangerman and we would do well to stop service to him, and from him.

Rest and Rotation

Having seen our lineup in the last game against Balestier Khalsa, it is pretty clear that Coach Ranko treats the Shopee Cup seriously, and is preserving the likes of Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy and Bart Ramselaar for this game.

This might work to our advantage as well, because CAHN FC had to grind hard over the weekend with their first team, and still ended up losing to Thanh Hoa FC. The legs might just be feeling a little heavy heading into this one.

Conclusion

The official preview written by the club is fantastic, and I highly recommend checking it out.

We are abit pampered in that the club really puts in effort to deliver such quality content, so we should definitely appreciate that. The preview does talk a lot about CAHN coach Mano Polking perhaps having a lot of knowledge about the Singaporean players due to his long stint as coach for the Thailand national team.

While that may be true, I am optimistic still, considering all the reasons above. Let’s just not play like how we did in Borneo please.

COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE!

My predicted line-up

Izwan Mahbud

Hafiz Nor, Lionel Tan, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Obren Kljajic

Hariss Harun, Hami Syahin

Maxime Lestienne, Lennart Thy, Bart Ramselaar

Score Prediction

Joseph and I predict the scores and track our success in a table. Stay tuned to find out who is the prediction king!

3 points for exact scoreline predicted correctly, 2 points for predicting the winner and margin of victory correctly (but not the exact scoreline), and 1 point for predicting the outcome correctly (win, lose or draw).

Eddy’s prediction: CAHN FC 1 Sailors 3

Joseph’s prediction: CAHN FC 1 Sailors 1

Written by Eddy Hirono

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Picture Credit – Tuoi Tre News