March 26, 2025

Qualification to the next stage may be almost certainly guaranteed, but if the Universe can conjure up Sanfrecce Hiroshima fielding an ineligible player to turn a 6-1 home win into a 0-3 defeat, then well, anything can happen. And that means, if we don’t get a draw, then we leave ourselves open to the small possibility of us losing our remaining 2 games, and then Balestier thrashes Tanjong Pagar or Tanjong Pagar thrashes Balestier by a huge scoreline to overcome the goal difference advantage we currently have. Unlikely? Well, stranger things have happened. Let’s dive right into a short preview of tonight’s game. Little Rest from the Singapore Game Means Massive Rotation Thanks to Geylang International’s sporting gesture to allow our match with them to be rescheduled, we face a game 2 days after our National Team played against Hong Kong. You’d have to think this will have some effect on who plays. Given our strong position in the Cup table, I think it is likely that those involved in the National Team games and who saw significant minutes are unlikely to be played. There is also the “last-chance saloon” that the BG Pathum game offers us. Should Balestier or Tanjong Pagar thrash the other team on Saturday night, then we can still go out and get at least a draw on Sunday night. It leaves us in a position to really rest our NT players. I suspect the likes of Anu, Hafiz Nor, Zharfan Rohaizad, and of course, our foreigners will be relied on for this game. Geylang in a Bit of a Rut Geylang International started the season on fire, and for a long time, were talked about as being part of the title race. Now, they are 14 points off the pace in the league table with 7 games to go. In the Cup, they are also rooted to the bottom of the table with 1 point from 3 games, losing to Tanjong Pagar and Balestier Khalsa. Here’s a stat that really shows what a bad run of form they are in – in 2025, they’ve played 8 games, and only won 2 of them. A 2-0 win over DPMM, and a 5-0 win over Tanjong Pagar United, both in the league. They’ve fallen off in a big way, and I think that may be down to very little capacity for rotation in their squad. They are not blessed with the squad depth that we have. They are also on the back of 2 consecutive losses, so there’s every chance that if the Sailors start well tonight, they’ll find themselves having to dig very deep to summon the will to come back. Tomoyuki Doi, Striker Extraordinaire Since the last time we faced him, Tomoyuki Doi has gone on to break the record for the most SPL goals scored in a league season. Despite Geylang’s barren run, Doi has still managed to score 11 goals in 8 games this year, a truly extraordinary run considering his team has sputtered in the engine room of late. He has the uncanny ability to make something out of nothing, and that’s how he has been scoring all these goals. We’ll need to watch him if we want to ensure we don’t lose this game. Conclusion I have to say, it’s a bit hard to care about this game when the stakes are so low, especially when we all know that a huge game against Sydney FC is on the semi-distant horizon. For Geylang, this is a dead rubber. There is only pride for them to reclaim, given their poor run this year. It being Ramadan as well, on a weekday night, may mean a poor turnout and an atmosphere that is not as boisterous as it should be for a Geylang-Sailors clash. Whatever it is, let’s wrap it up against Geylang, so that when we take on BG Pathum at the weekend, we can play the likes of Nathan Mao, Haiqal Pashia, Helix, etc. COME ON YOU BOYS IN BLUE! My predicted line-up Zharfan Rohaizad Chris van Huizen, Anumanthan Kumar, Bailey Wright, Toni Datkovic, Diogo Costa Rui Pires, Song Ui-Young Abdul Rasaq, 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! Eddy’s prediction: Geylang 1 Sailors 2 Joseph’s prediction: Geylang 0 Sailors 2 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!