Fuck fuckity fuck. Fucking fucked-up fuckfest of a fucking end to a fucking football game. Fuck!
You’ll hopefully forgive me for that expletive-laden start to this post. That was probably what was going through my mind on that night in Jalan Besar, which was more than a couple of nights ago now, but is still fresh in my head.
And if you thought that was what was going through my mind when we conceded the third goal, you’d be wrong. That was what was going through my mind when we conceded the SECOND goal. The third goal? Well, my mind just went fucking blank. How does that happen?
(If you are offended by the use of the F word, it’s your chance to close this page now, there may be more coming. Also, if this graphic triggers you, maybe don’t continue as well.)
Sigh. It absolutely does not help that we looked fucking imperious in the first half. It’s like you’re eating this decadent chocolate cake oozing with goodness, and as you carry on eating, the chocolate sauce continues to ooze out from the middle of the cake. Just when you’re about to finish the cake, you realise though, that right in the middle, wasn’t actually a ball of chocolate sauce – it was a fucking alive but gangrenous rat having a fucking mad bout of fucking chocolate diarrhoea.
I am sorry for that visual, but hey, I was forced to sit through some real terrible trauma last week, and I suspect if you are reading this, you were too.
This is part of your therapy.
Never too early to start. Before we talk about why it went down like that, let’s focus on the trauma a little first.
The Trauma
You’d think as an Arsenal fan I’d be used to trauma. 8-2 loss to Manchester United, 2-1 loss in the 2006 Champions League final, 6-0 loss to Chelsea in Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game, the list goes on. But a comeback like that that leaves me with flashbacks days after?
I think it only really happened to me after the 2014 Suzuki Cup group stage match against Malaysia. Remember this game?
To add on to Straits Times’s succinct summary, Safee Sali got Malaysia a goal and so we needed an equaliser. We got the equaliser in the 83rd minute through Khairul Amri, and it looked like we were going through to the knockout stages. But in stoppage time, the referee awarded a crazy penalty kick, and that was then followed by an empty-net goal after Hassan Sunny had joined the attack.
The National Stadium was packed with 48000+ fans – imagine that. There was an explosion of emotion when we got into the equaliser. That was us going to the knockout stages! And then came the absolute sucker-punch. I can still remember Indra Putra running around the Sportshub after he made it 3-1. The Malaysian fans went mad in the stands as well.
Don’t remember it? Well you can go watch it again. To be in a stadium with 48000 other Lions fans, and suffer such trauma together, I couldn’t forget that easily. I remember as well how usually well-behaved Singaporeans started throwing bottles at the referee after the final whistle – it got so bad that they transported out the tunnel and the referee had to be escorted off with the moving tunnel.
I remember every minute, every image, every word uttered by those around me on that night. And I hoped never to relive that again.
But such are the ups and downs of football – 10 years later, I am given the privilege of seeing Persib Bandung fans going mad in the stands, Persib’s bench players running onto the pitch before the match was over, because they knew, the match WAS over. Sheer ecstasy and disbelief, etched on each of every one of those faces.
Walking out of the stadium and having to congratulate every Persib fan I see because I know if I didn’t, they would mock me. So, just congratulate them first to avoid the mocking. Still didn’t stop one fool running at me from distance shouting “WE WIN WE WIN HAHAHAHA BYE BYE SAILORS”. Fuck him.
The memory as well of knowing that Port FC had scored a late winner against Zhejiang, which meant that if we could hold on to our 2-1 lead, we would have secured qualification to the next round. And then to have it all go wrong in the space of a few fucking minutes.
As I type this, I know these memories will stay with me a long time. I didn’t write about the match back then though, because I didn’t have a blog or a website or anything.
Maybe now that I have a website and I can share my thoughts with you guys, it will help with the recovery process. Ok so where did it all go wrong?
Too Passive in Second Half?
This has been mentioned many times by the fans after the game. And I think it’s quite true – but I only half-agree with it.
We took off Shawal in the 65th minute. I understand that Shawal has issues with his body – Coach Ranko spoke about this at the pre-match press conference. Shawal gave us a good hour, and our opening goal of the night. What a brilliant goal it was too, but it will now join the ranks of Maxime’s brilliant curler against Tampines Rovers at OTH – goals that we cannot truly enjoy because we remember the shitty result that came with it.
To be honest, at 65 minutes, with Persib barely threatening us, I genuinely thought it was an OK decision to bring in some experience. We can’t be hindsight merchants and now say that perhaps Ranko should have tried to replicate Shawal’s attacking effort upfront with someone like Abdul Rasaq or Haiqal Pashia. Hindsight is 20/20 and you don’t wanna be that fan that is always saying “I knew that would happen”. Well if you fucking knew, maybe you should say it BEFORE the comeback starts, not AFTER.
We can only comment on the effect of that. What happened was that substitution came along with a very positive one for Persib – they brought on their star striker, David da Silva. He didn’t have an immediate impact, but you could see him infusing his team with belief. While Persib looked like they had given up at 2-0 down, David da Silva played like a man possessed. He was always up for a duel, and was urging all his teammates on, complaining to the ref that the Sailors took too long to restart play, etc. Basically, he brought energy where previously it was sorely lacking.
Back to the Hariss substitution – I think it was necessary particularly because Hami Syahin was taken off by Coach Ranko. Prior to being taken off, he was repeatedly targetted by Persib players who all deserve Oscars for their performances in trying to get Hami sent off for any slight contact – they knew he was already on a yellow and was playing the game of his life, so they wanted him off.
This was crucial. Hami was playing right wing-back, but when we had the ball, he took up central positions, and could thus circulate the ball with Rui in the middle, helping us to keep possession better. When Hafiz Nor came on, the midfield control was not as good as it was in the first half. So Hariss came on. I think us fans, and the coach knew exactly what that would do – we had sacrificed one attacking outlet, in a bid to become a little more solid at the back.
I don’t think that’s wrong in and of itself. I think it’s a legitimate tactic to sit in, make it hard for your opposition to play, and then survive. Grind out the result. Three points, thank you very much.
But I think we did it poorly.
Shutting Up Shop, but Leaving the Backdoor Open
Shutting up shop is a common football expression. Park the bus is another. Essentially the same thing – sit back, hang tight, and survive.
However, what we did was to shut up shop by locking the front door and not the back. For good measure, we then also left the key outside as well so they could open the front door too. It hurts me to type all this because it was just so bad.
The 2-1 goal I can put down to some luck – but I do think Izwan should have done better as da Silva’s header was straight at him. I think he was put off by the presence of Datkovic next to him, but he’ll feel he could’ve done better.
Then came the disallowed goal.
Surely you’d think, after the disallowed 2nd goal, we would have woken up, the coach would have done something, said something to the players, etc. Just fucking ANYTHING. It was so obvious that we were just clinging on. Do we not have enough experience to do a DPMM? I.e. when the momentum is against us, could we not indulge in a little bit of the dark arts? We had ten minutes to protect a 2-1 lead and we never once came even close to getting a yellow card for time-wasting?
Maybe Izwan could’ve gone down with a cramp or something to allow the players a breather, to allow Persib’s momentum to break, and to allow Coach Ranko to pass down some instructions from the side?
The 2nd goal is where I really cannot understand. If you are sitting back, how the fuck does someone have all the fucking time in the world to just load up power, aim and pick his spot? I don’t think it’s a lack of effort. But surely it’s either a lack of composure in the pressure moments of the game, or a lack of command. This is where I feel the greatest disappointment because this is not a young squad. This squad has tons of experience there, in the form of Bailey, Hariss, Hafiz, Anu, etc.
Then came the 3rd goal. I don’t know man. The way I see Toni Datkovic miss that pass, I think I know exactly what happened there. If we wanted to take a draw there and then, Toni would have just cleared that into the stands. But there was that window of hesitation – he wanted to keep the ball alive. He wanted to cushion it down for Chris, maybe to launch a final attack. But half of him probably also wanted to clear the ball to safety.
What was the plan after 2-2? Was the plan “OK boys, we fucked it up, now let’s make sure we at least get that point. Stay tight for the next minute or so”. Or was it “Let’s try to get the 3rd goal”? I don’t know, but to be very honest, it didn’t look like the players knew as well. If you want the 2-2, you smack that ball into the stands and it’s over. Still disappointing to draw 2-2 but not disastrous. 8 points from 4 games, unbeaten, hey that’s great man.
Is this the coach’s fault? Players? I think all of them. Everyone had a part to play in this collapse. I disagree with Coach Ranko, who said there was some bad luck involved. I don’t think so – there was unease in the stands because to a degree, we could all see the mounting pressure. We all felt like maybe an equaliser was coming after the disallowed goal.
Regrets Plus Some Positives I Guess?
We led 2-0 at half-time and looked so comfortable. We retreated into our shells, but even then – it looked like we might just get away with it with so little time left.
Fuck!
It makes it hurt so much more knowing that we could have sealed qualification that very day. We were so close. And with regrets it usually means that there were some positives.
- Shawal Anuar proves once again he is the man for the big stage, with a coolly-taken goal. That ball from Maxime Lestienne is perfection. I mean, when he shifts it onto his left foot, he’s in his own half. How do you even stop that? If you go too tight to him, Maxime is just gonna run past you. If you leave him a yard of space, he is gonna find his best buddy Shawal. Like a heat-seeking missile, that ball was perfectly beyond the defensive line. But that’s just part 1, Shawal had to control it perfectly on his left foot and then execute the deftest of lobs to beat Mendoza. A fantastic goal.
- Maxime almost scored 2 headers. Maybe that should have been the cosmic sign that something was gonna go badly wrong. Maxime just doesn’t score headers. To see him score 2 in the same game would have been unthinkable. According to the club website, this was “Max’s first headed goal since joining the Sailors, with his last one coming for Standard Liege against KAS Eupen in the Belgian Pro League back in April 2021“.
- Hami Syahin was superb again. He did his defensive duties well at right wingback, and it is no surprise that once he went off, we looked increasingly disjointed.
- In the first half, the team moved together, pressed together, and really imposed their will on the game and we could have had one or two more goals.
- Oh, and both sets of fans were loud and created a good atmosphere.
- Yeah that’s about it.
The Big Picture
And finally we’re here. 4 games in, on 7 points. We’re still in second, which is a qualification slot. Would we have taken this position at the start of the campaign? Definitely. And so I guess that is the consolation we can cling on to. These are quite formidable teams, and we’ve gone into most of the games as underdogs. To be in this position right now is something to be happy about.
If we play well in our remaining 2 games, it’s still in our hands. As little as 1 point may bring us to the next stage. If we go to Zhejiang and get a point, and then Port beat Persib, then that’s game over for Persib and Zhejiang.
I guess the question is this – will the traumatic nature of this defeat take its toll on the team? Will they feel like they’ve chucked their best chance of progress out of the window? Without a league match in between games to hopefully bounce back with a routine victory, can Coach Ranko spur his troops on in the training ground to improve them for the next match?
Conclusion
I referred to writing this article as part of the recovery process post-trauma.
Ultimately, the recovery process will only be complete if we qualify for the next stage. Because if we don’t, my mind will fucking come back to this fucking game and the fucking stoppage time period where we fucking threw it away.
But I guess that’s why we love football. As we watched Persib fans go mad in the stands when their team delivered the win, we know we just have to congratulate them on a terrific comeback, and trust that someday it will be us feeling those emotions.
But for now, enjoy this haiku, loosely based on the regular terrace chant – “Two Nil and you Fucked It Up”, because if we don’t learn to laugh at ourselves, others will laugh at us.
Two nil at half time
LCS comfortable
And we fucked it up.
Written by Eddy Hirono
If you’d like to support the work we do here at SailorFanTalk, you may want to visit https://ko-fi.com/sailorfantalk and leave us a tip!
