A comfortable win, with no injuries. During this hectic schedule, that’s all everyone at the club would have wished for. But we got one better than that – we got a match where our players could take it a little easier because of a man advantage. A 38th min red card to Fudhil I’yadh when our Sailors were already 2-0 up meant that we played more than half the game with a man advantage, further resting those legs we are gonna need on Wednesday, and in Hiroshima. Let’s dive right into some post-match thoughts, including my take on why the red card was a little harsh.
Was It a Red Card?
In my opinion, it’s debatable.
I have marked in red the spot the ball first bounced, to show you how near Max was to getting to the pass. Considering that Max was already on the run, he would likely have got to the ball ahead of Fudhil, who started his run later.
However, if you look at where the ball eventually landed as an indicator of the trajectory of the pass, it can also be said that Max would have got to a slightly wider position.
I think the trouble with these decisions is we don’t get any insight as to why the referee has decided a certain way, and why the VAR has advised the referee to have a look at the monitor. I am quite comfortable with this decision had it gone either way. If the referee felt it was only worthy of a yellow card, and cited factors such as distance from goal and also, the eventual wider position that Maxime would have ended up in, I think I’d be OK with the decision – but I would also be OK if the referee felt it was worthy of a red card, citing the lack of a covering defender nearby, and also the fact that Maxime was likely to reach it ahead of Hafiz Ahmad, who was off his line, but not sufficiently off enough to get to the ball first.
However, if enough people agree with that, then I’d make the case that this is a debatable decision, and the referee, who initially showed a yellow card to Fudhil, cannot be said to have made a clear and obvious error.
Interestingly enough, this situation occurred to Sailors 2 years back against Albirex. It was from even further out, and the player said to have been denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity is legendary Japanese player Tadanari Lee, who by that point in his career was slower than a turtle. (Yes, I mean turtle, not tortoise because turtles are not supposed to be able to move on land, and that’s what I am comparing Tadanari Lee to). Am I bitter about the red card still?
Yes.
Similarly, in that game, I felt the red card was also a debatable decision, but having produced a yellow card, I wasn’t sure that it was a clear and obvious refereeing error not to give Anu a red card. You can read it again here – I really dive deep into IFAB’s guidance for Denial of Obvious Goal Scoring Opportunity (DOGSO) situations. So, my conclusion is that the red card is OK to give, but having given a yellow first, I am not sure it crosses the threshold into clear and obvious error, and in that sense, it is harsh.
I hope that Singaporean referees can have a show or tiktok or IG reel sometime, to talk about some refereeing points / guidelines when it comes to such situations? It may help to educate the public like me on how they reach certain decisions.
In any case, it didn’t really affect the result I think, we were well on our way to victory anyway. We were 2-0 up and should have been 3-0 up right before, but Maxime refused to shoot on his right foot, having already scored one on that foot a few minutes earlier. Balestier managed to get away with that one, but barely 1 minute later, the red card incident happened.
As stated, I think the only real effect on the game is that it made it much easier for us to conserve legs, as we controlled and saw out the rest of the game.
Stoppage Time
Speaking of “didn’t really affect the game” – I noted that the commentary talked about how it was surprising that only 2 min of stoppage time was indicated after the second half. It was also referenced in Raushan’s podcast (Sporting Minutes).
Regular readers will remember that this is territory that we’ve covered. And guess what, it was the same referee! Click here to read.
However, I think it was nowhere near as egregious this time. Against DPMM last season, they frequently dropped to the floor as they looked to see out the win. In my calculations in that article, I only counted stoppage time for injury stoppages, plus VAR checks. I did not count your “regular” stoppages like goal kicks, throw-ins, etc, where DPMM took their time too.
Shockingly, the difference between what was indicated and what was given was a whopping 9 min. That’s 10% of your match.
This time round, I did the same checks.
2 min of stoppage time was indicated, when the minimum should really have been 4 minutes, because of course there are your other “usual” stoppages as well. I must say I don’t quite get it. There was a long check for Kodai’s eventually disallowed goal. Surely the ref should be adding that time back on? This is even if I want to make excuses for the ref and say that since Lenny’s goal took a shorter time to check, maybe he chose not to add that time on.
Added time serves the purpose of making our players more ready for games that last longer and are more intense. We don’t have to look so far back – Muangthong scored against us in the 10th minute of injury time in Bangkok.
Lennart Thy
4 goals, and he made it look really easy, didn’t he. This is what we expected and hoped for, and it seems now that he’s been here in Singapore for a while now, he’s really starting to get to grips with the league. Besides the goals, his link-up play all night was also superb. Check out this pass he made for Maxime that eventually got Fudhil sent off.
Receiving it with his back to goal, he probably gets a shout from Maxime, and he just turns to deliver a good ball over the top for Maxime to chase.
He has not featured as much in recent games in the ACL2 from the start, but I think there is a very big reason named Shawal for that. It’s a manager’s dream, really, to be able to pick from 2 quality forwards.
Balestier Exposed
Kudos to Balestier Khalsa for taking the game to us – but I wonder if that’s really the best idea considering we love to exploit space in behind.
Hat tip to Rhysh Roshan Rai on commentary who said “Cheeky. Cheeky bit of skill from Riku there”. Hyak hyak hyak.
Conclusion
Not much to say in this one to be honest. We kept our lead at the top of the table, extended our lead on goal difference against BG Tampines and managed to rest several players.
You couldn’t really ask for more. Let’s get that win against the yellow and black tomorrow.
Written by Eddy Hirono
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