January 9, 2025

The Shopee Cup has been said by fans, and even some experts to be a second-rate competition. The label of “ASEAN” means that perhaps this competition lacks the lustre of the ACL Elite or the ACL2. I beg to differ – I think that the quality of opposition is actually on par with what we have faced in the ACL2 this season. Buriram and Cong An Ha Noi – are these teams not equal to or better than teams like Port FC and Persib Bandung? And if you look away from our ACL2 group – are they not a million times better than Lee Man, Eastern, or the hilariously-named Dynamic Herb Cebu? I mean I get the irony of me laughing at a football club which has its corporate identity so brazenly planted into the club’s name, considering that Sailors is a reference to the SEA corporation, but Dynamic Herb is as unsexy as it gets man. And the football they play? Not a ringing endorsement for the herbal products they sell. But … I digress. My point is simply this – we need to do well in competitions like these, even if qualification to the next stage looks unlikely. A club of LCS’s stature needs to win the league year in year out, but in my opinion, it also needs to make strides overseas, and assert themselves regionally. And I urge you to read that sentence carefully again – we HAVE to win the league, and do well regionally. I think winning is a habit, and if we don’t play well and try to win every game, then we fail in our objectives. 2025 is gonna be a big year for us, and the winning starts now. Let’s dive right into the preview. Our Opponents KL City FC is a reactive team, just like us. They don’t seek to dominate teams – they try to defend well and then hit on the break. Their games so far in the Shopee Cup have both been 1-0 wins at home, against Borneo FC and Kaya FC. However, the games could not have been more different. Against Borneo FC, they were clinging on for dear life as the keeper and defence held firm against some crazy pressure, before scoring a goal against the run of play through Brendan Gan – who will not be available against us tonight. They held 27% possession and a shocking 65% pass accuracy. Against Kaya FC, while they still didn’t hold the majority of possession, they carved apart their opponents’ defence at will and should really have added more to the scoreline. All they managed though was a goal from a goalkeeping error. And therein lies the hope for us – while their Shopee Cup record looks impressive, they are not an unbeatable team without flaws. They lie 8th out of 13 teams in the Malaysian Super League, and even if you take into account the points deduction they suffered because they submitted inaccurate documents to AFC, they would still be outside the top 4. Their points tally would also be closer to the bottom of the table than the top. I don’t profess to know a lot about our opponents other than watching highlights from the MSL and their two Shopee Cup games, but head on down to the official LCS website to check out their preview of the game as well. Notably, aside from Brendan Gan missing, they have their second-top scorer Jovan Motika missing as well. We won’t get a better opportunity than this. Our National Team Players Hami, Izwan, Shawal, and Lionel clocked some serious minutes in the Mitsubishi Electric Cup, and while that was one and a half weeks ago, I do wonder if some of them will be given a bit of an extended break just to ensure they can go the distance in the three competitions we have this year. Hariss, Chris van Huizen, and Abdul Rasaq were there too, but didn’t see quite as many minutes. Assuming Izwan doesn’t get rested because goalkeeper isn’t the most physically-demanding competition, I expect that Shawal, Lionel and Hami will not start this game. That obviously weakens our strongest possible line-up, but I think we can still cope. Might be a good opportunity to let Zharfan play as well. I am not entirely sure about who else is available or not for this game. We might have a small clue from the Instagram posts of Kitchee and Sailors respectively when they met for a friendly game on 4 Jan. The players who featured in the photos of the game were Anu, Song, Bart Ramselaar, Hafiz Nor, Nathan Mao, Rui Pires, Lennart Thy, Bill Mamadou, Haiqal Pashia, and Sergio Carmona. Anu’s an interesting one. I think of all people he will admit that his performances in 2024 have been a long way from his best, and he has struggled to get minutes as well. There are strong rumours floating around that he will be loaned out in January, but so far no official confirmation yet. It was thus a bit surprising to see him get minutes in the Kitchee friendly. What does the future hold for him? Only time will tell. Interesting Battle of Reactive Teams As stated above, KL City is likely, especially in an away game, to sit back and wait for us to try to attack them. However, our Sailors have thus far in continental competition, adopted that role as we come up against teams that have more quality than us. Will we see us do the same as we have in continental competition? I suspect not, considering we need a win in order to ignite any potential comeback in this group. We are rock bottom of the group having played like shit in the two games so far against Borneo and CAHN. While I don’t think we will ditch our 5-at-the-back formation, I believe that we will try to start the game with the same intensity as we did