Eddy Hirono – Page 19 – SailorFanTalk

Rusyaidi is a Sailor – More Fight, More Bite?

1 Comment / Daily Musings, Player Profiles, Transfers / Eddy Hirono

Earlier this week, we announced the signing of Tanjong Pagar United midfielder Rusyaidi Salime. Like the rest of our signings, this one has been rumoured for very long. What does he bring to our midfield? His comments upon joining us have been very positive – “I won’t back out of any challenges and you can expect me to be a tough yet fair player on the pitch. I will try my best to win every challenge as I possibly can and to stop my team from conceding goals,” “I’m someone who always gives my 100% for the team. I will work hard for the club, the fans and my teammates – let’s win something together in the season ahead.” Sounds like the kind of player fans will get behind – do the stats bear that out for him? Hunger and Bite Recalling a conversation I had with LCS staff about a month back, they mentioned that the club was going to get hungrier, leaner, meaner players. I think nobody fits this profile more than Rusyaidi Salime. Let’s take a look at the stats. Right off the bat, you can see that for two years running, Rusyaidi has been in a lot of foul trouble. 7 yellow cards last season is the second-highest, while his 8 yellow cards in the 2021 season ranked him top of the pile. Considering 2021 was a short season where he made 18 appearances, the yellow-card tally may be a bit worrying. A little too much bite? Perhaps the way Tanjong Pagar play factors into that as well – given that 5 of the top 10 yellow card recipients are their players. What is encouraging is that there seems to be some improvement from 2021 to 2022. If you look at the stats below (which include his appearances in the SG Cup), you will see that he was involved in more challenges and attempted more tackles this year compared to last. However, he has only got 1 more yellow card, and conceded fewer fouls (29 to 36), perhaps showing that he is beginning to pick his tackles abit better. Goal Threat Of course, given that the Sailors are also a team that expect to play attacking football and dominate most games we are involved in, passing and attacking stats are worth looking at. Does Rusyaidi pose a goal threat? The simple answer is “No”. He has scored just once in his last 2 seasons. Last season he had an xG of 0.79 and he scored 1 goal, a smart sliding finish in the box against Tampines Rovers (watch at 49 seconds). I’ll give you some food for thought though. Despite not scoring with his long shots, in the past 2 seasons, on occasion, set piece experts such as Raihan Rahman and Luiz Junior have allowed him to take direct free kicks at goal. Perhaps he cracks them in during training and we SPL fans have just not been lucky enough to see his hidden talent? That may be the eternal optimist in me speaking – there’s so far not been any evidence to suggest that goalscoring is one of his abilities. He certainly doesn’t lack confidence though, and on occasion, he cuts in to his weaker foot to strike them from range – so far, none of these have been goals, or even shots that trouble the keeper. Passing Let’s start by getting the obvious out of the way. Rusyaidi is no Shahdan Sulaiman – but who is? That is just an unfair expectation to place on our new signing. Shahdan is one of Singapore’s greatest midfielders and who continues to dominate games even at his age. Shahdan’s passing percentage from last season was a whopping 88%, and he attempted an average of 49 passes per game in the league (double of Rusyaidi’s 24 passes per game). Rusyaidi is not a like-for-like replacement for Shahdan. However, for a guy who is known more as a destroyer, or a box-to-box midfielder, Rusyaidi’s 79% passing accuracy is decent. He has also played 16 key passes, which compares similarly to Shahdan’s 18 key passes in 2022. All-Action Midfielder? I wish InStat gave me information on distance covered by players. I’d imagine that Rusyaidi would score quite highly on that. The eye test tells me that he’s an all-action midfielder and he’s everywhere on the pitch. If we take a look at the heat map data for him, and compare it to that of Shahdan Sulaiman, it’s interesting to note that they both have a bias towards the right-hand side of the pitch. Also, you can clearly see that Rusyaidi is involved a lot more in deeper positions on the pitch – whether this is something that he can adapt to when he joins a more attacking Sailors side, that remains to be seen. Conclusion I think Rusyaidi is an exciting signing. From the eye-test, he is an all-action midfielder who likes to get involved in all areas of the pitch. Tanjong Pagar United was a team that did not dominate the ball as much as the Sailors did last season, and as such, was a team that spent a lot of time on the counter-attack, or defending counter-attacks. Last season, one of the Sailors’ weaknesses I felt was in stopping counter-attacks early, and I feel that Rusyaidi’s bravery in diving into tackles, coupled with what seems to be an improvement in choosing the right moments to tackle, may reap some rewards for the Sailors this year. He has a tendency to really snap into challenges once the opponent has miscontrolled the ball a little – give him a slight opening, and the ball is gone, the attack is snuffed out. That’s what we hope he can bring to us next year. His passing percentage, while not astounding, is decent enough. If he can get the ball to our more dominant ball-players such as Diego Lopes or Hami Syahin, we should still be fine in the attacking department. To end off,

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Superman, Out

Leave a Comment / Daily Musings, Player Profiles, Transfers / Eddy Hirono

What has been rumoured for a month or so now has finally been confirmed by Albirex Niigata (S) – Hassan Sunny has joined the reigning champions. We had confirmation a few weeks back that he would not be retained, along with Shahdan, Gabriel, Naqi, Iqram, and Faris. Then the rumour mill started churning and there was news that he would be joining Albirex. You could tell there was probably some bad blood, as not only did Hassan not show up at all for the Dortmund game, which would have allowed us a chance to say our final goodbye to him, he tweeted this on 25 Nov 2022. It is not the most subtle, but in case you’ve not had your morning coffee yet, it says “The ship has sunk”. We now know of course, that he was perhaps referring to the wide-ranging cuts that were about to happen across all levels in the club, both in the playing and non-playing staff. I wrote about it sometime back too, and expressed my opinion that far from it being a “strategic reset”, it was probably just cost-cutting measures. You can check it out here. But let’s stick to the football chat and take a conscious step away from our off-the-field troubles. What does this transfer bring to Albirex, our closest rivals from last year? And does it weaken us alot? Takahiro Koga v Hassan Sunny Age – Koga is 24 next year while Hassan will be 39. For an outfield player, 39 might be a problem, but as we’ve seen with Hassan over the years, he just seems to get better with age. I remember during his Home United days, the other players would tell me stories about how Hassan is very professional and always looks after himself – sleeping early, waking up early to get some stretching in, and sometimes even dragging the other boys along with him to do that when on overseas trips. This of course meant that they would have to give up any night activities because Hassan would call them up at 6am or so to drag them out to stretch. Given his professionalism, age truly is just a number for him, and he still pulled off plenty of improbable saves last season. In fact, one might say that Hassan’s age works in his favour in that he is more experienced than Koga, who does have an error in him sometimes, especially due to his position during offensive phases (more on this later). Statistics – Comparing the two when it comes to percentage of shots saved, Hassan comes out ahead, at 68%, compared to Koga’s 64%. This stat is all the more impressive considering that Hassan’s stats include our AFC Champions League campaign where we played against much better opposition as compared to our SPL teams. Another stat that jumps out at me is the number of “supersaves” that are made by the respective keepers. Hassan’s 1.19 supersaves a game is considerably more than Koga’s 0.76. Of course, what is defined as a supersave is subjective and depends on how Instat classifies them – but I think just based on the eye-test, we Sailors fans can remember numerous difficult saves that Hassan was required to make last year. He more than deserves to be called Superman. Playing style – The last comparison is playing style. I think from what we’ve seen so far, Hassan is more than an adequate replacement for Koga. I think that he will be an upgrade on Koga. But how will he slot in to the Albirex style of play? I think one thing to note is that Koga leaves his line way more often to claim the ball than Hassan. If you look at the stats comparison above, you will see that Hassan averages 1.09 GK exits a game, while Koga averages 1.79 GK exits a game. The eye-test confirms this as well. Hassan rarely leaves his line. Another thing to compare is the ball touches map below. You can clearly see that Koga is a more “adventurous” keeper – for better or for worse. Fans of the SPL will know that Koga has been caught in no-man’s land on more than a few occasions in the past two seasons, which have led to embarrassing goals or moments. High-risk, high-reward I suppose – sometimes coming out to claim the ball can relieve the pressure on your defence and stop potentially dangerous situations. Conclusion What does this mean for Albirex and for Hassan? Well of course this comparison is not conclusive, but I think Hassan may need to adapt a little to the Albirex playstyle. He will be expected to shuffle more across the box to pick up passes from his defenders, and then play the ball out. His defenders may also need to adapt to a keeper who doesn’t come out as much. Overall though, there is no doubting that Hassan will be a good signing for Albirex. I don’t think there is a significant gulf between the quality of Koga and Hassan, despite Koga’s inconsistency this season, but where the impact may be felt more keenly is that it clearly weakens the Sailors. The drop-off from Hassan to whoever is going to replace him is going to be a large one, especially because Izwan is out with an ACL injury. We will do a statistical comparison when the replacement is announced (rumoured to be Zharfan Rohaizad), but I think the national team pecking order tells its own story – Hassan is far and away the best goalkeeper in our land. TL;DR – Hassan to Albirex will strengthen them slightly, but will weaken the Sailors by a lot. Sad. (Written by Eddy, with stats taken from football.instatscout.com)

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Blue Is the Colour

2 Comments / Daily Musings / Eddy Hirono

If you’re reading this, you probably already can guess what I am sad about. Developments in recent days involving the Sailors have really left me scratching my head and wondering – what is the direction for our Sailors moving forward, and why has all this change happened? If you need some context, perhaps read this article in the Straits Times (https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football-stars-key-backroom-staff-depart-lion-city-sailors). Fan favourites Faris Ramli, Gabriel Quak, Hassan Sunny, and Shahdan Sulaiman were among 6 players confirmed to be released, along with Iqram Rifqi and Naqiuddin Eunos. Of course, the Straits Times perhaps chose to focus on the four bigger names because they are some of the “highest-paid local footballers” – implying that the motivation for these decisions was mostly financial. But was it? Cost-cutting? Or something more? So the Straits Times subtly implies that it has to do with costs. This is a natural inference, given that SEA and Shopee have been laying off staff, pulling out of markets, and having their financial woes reported all over for large parts of this year. In fact, we tried our best to see for ourselves what the situation was like, when we wrote an article and released a podcast (https://sailorfantalk.com/2022/11/19/should-fans-be-worried-about-forrest-li-sea-losing-money/). We tried to remain optimistic back then – and perhaps that was the responsible thing to do, especially when we didn’t have any evidence to speculate the worst. But the worst has materialised. Besides the players being released, a significant number of backroom staff have been released as well. This was the saddest part of it all for me, but more on that later. The statement put out by LCS (https://www.lioncitysailorsfc.sg/sailors-ceo-chun-liang-a-rollercoaster-2022-but-smooth-seas-never-made-a-skilled-sailor/) suggests that this is a “strategic reset”, and no mention is made about cost-cutting. In fact, more mention was made about how the failures this year have led to the club taking drastic action. A few players I can understand, but backroom staff at all levels? Besides those mentioned in the article, I know of several other staff who were let go, or voluntarily left. If you talk about the need for a reset, why is there a need for Logistics staff to go? I can’t really think of a reason for needing to change things around in the Logistics department. Is there even a need for a reset? And then we look at whether there is even a need for a reset – or such a drastic one. This is a team of playing staff and backroom staff who not just won the title last season, but also performed pretty well in the AFC Champions League barely months ago. On the pitch, the players did not look out of place alongside Daegu FC’s players. We beat them once 3-0, and then in the second game, lost it in pretty extraordinary circumstances. When we came back, we also managed to avoid the pitfalls that Tampines Rovers went through last year. The team’s physical workload seemed to have been well-managed, and they did not look fatigued when they returned to league action. This was a major problem for Tampines last year as they really struggled when they returned from their Champions League campaign, so I was glad that it was not repeated in LCS. In fact, we went into the final months of the season with a good lead over Albirex Niigata (S). We will dedicate a whole article and video to our speculation as to why we did not win the title, but suffice to say, it seemed that for a long time this season, the playing and non-playing staff seemed to have functioned at a pretty high standard. To cut almost all of them seems pretty drastic. And of course, I think I might be ignoring the elephant in the room here. It seems pretty apparent to me (and many fans) that in this “reset”, it seems that one of the key elements of our failure last season, was how quickly things went to shit after Coach Kim was sacked and Coach Luka took over. I am not blaming him entirely for it – I do think the players have to take some responsibility for this as well, but how come it seems there are no consequences for him? Who was let go? Many people were let go, but let’s focus on a few of them. Take Firdaus Massar and Mario Jovanovic. These are coaches who have worked with world-class stars – Firdaus with EPL clubs like Liverpool and Wolves, and Jovanovic who was Strength & Conditioning Coach with the Croatian national youth teams. When they came in, Firdaus said – “The Sailors are currently working to put in place a well-structured sports science department, and have improved their backend and technical capabilities immensely, which is a clear sign that they are serious about becoming one of the best teams in the region.” Now that you cut both, what gives? What happens to this “well-structured sports science department”? Are we promoting staff from the academy? And if you do that, are they qualified enough to do the job? Even if they are, then what happens to our much-vaunted academy? Are they double-hatting? So many questions, so few answers. The “Staff” section on the Sailors website has also seemingly been removed. Then our physios. With Kak Fizah gone, will there be a full-time physio taking charge of the players, or are we moving back to the system in the past where we had team doctors who did not work on the premises full-time? If she is replaced, will it be someone of a similar stature? Is there someone in the local scene of a similar stature and with the depth of experience dealing with professional footballers as she does? And I haven’t even discussed those who voluntarily left. Although some did move on to better opportunities, I wonder if this is all a coincidence, and if it is a symptom of something happening internally that we fans should be worrying about. What it means to support a club When

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Fun Day Out at LCS Training Centre + Dortmund Preview

Leave a Comment / Daily Musings, Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

It was a fun day out for the boys of SailorFanTalk today, as all three of us headed down bright and early to LCS Training Centre to play in the BVB Fan Club v The Crew friendly game. Fun fact, Ethan (one of SailorFanTalk’s own) is also a huge BVB supporter and so he played for BVB Fan Club. The Crew 2 – 1 BVB Fan Club Despite being outnumbered by the BVB fans, after some negotiation, it was agreed that 4 of the newer BVB fans would don Sailors shirts and play for us. This of course caused quite a bit of unfamiliarity for us and we started the match tentatively. However, we managed to slowly gain a foothold in the game, and went into half-time with a 2-1 lead. BVB fans clearly took the game very seriously, judging by the number of sliding tackles I saw from their players. It was a friendly, but it was clear that BVB were trying their best to win it. After half-time, BVB sent out their “death squad”, putting together their best team in a bid to come back into the game, but by then we had gelled with our new friends and gradually grew into the game. In the end, we managed to see the game out courtesy of some good defending and good goalkeeping, and there were handshakes and smiles all around. We made some new friends, and I made it a point to take a picture with 10 year old Thabo, who is definitely one to watch. He’s a young Ousmane Dembele, and I had to concentrate really hard to make sure he didn’t get the better of me. And he’s 10! Apparently he’s one of the top-scorers in the Puma Youth Champions League, so yeah Thabo if you ever become famous please remember that I played against you one rainy morning in 2022! It was all fun and games, but the morning ended on a sour note as our very own Joseph twisted his knee chasing an opponent, and had to receive treatment from the ambulance crew. We wish Joseph a speedy recovery! Meet-and-Greet with Sailors and Dortmund Players After the friendly game, we washed up and went on to the meet-and-greet. Sailors’ representatives were captain Hariss Harun, and Gabriel Quak. For BVB, they sent Julian Rijkhoff and Antonios Papadopoulos – I must be very honest and say I had never in my life heard of them. I have since done some checking and it seems Rijkhoff has not made a senior appearance yet, while Papadopoulos has had a few cameos. Through the interviews, they did seem like pretty approachable and humble people – people committed to making it in the Bundesliga. I wish them the best in their careers. However, the highlight of the meet-and-greet for me at least was the chance to see Hariss and Gab, especially Hariss before he flies off soon to national team training ahead of the AFF ME Cup. When asked about the team’s chances, he let on that the team was looking to at least repeat what was achieved last edition – a semi-final position, or even better. He also agreed with the comment made by the moderator that Jalan Besar Stadium is a unique venue because of how intimate it is with the supporters being so close to the action, especially when both sides are sold out. After a few more questions that were unremarkable, it was time for photo-taking and autograph-signing. Once again, smiles all around. Preview to Dortmund game Obviously, given that this is a friendly game, the result isn’t really gonna matter. However, I feel that with the gloomy end to the season and all the uncertainty surrounding whether our players will be extended, I really hope that we put up a respectable showing. I am confident we will get this. I think it’s also good that our Sailors get to say a proper goodbye to us. So far, we know that Faris Ramli is gone, because of his Instastory that announced it was his last day at the LCS Training Centre a few days back. The official website has also confirmed that Shahdan Sulaiman is gone (https://www.lioncitysailorsfc.sg/friendly-only-in-name-sailors-vow-to-be-competitive-against-bvb/), and he isn’t the only one. Here’s the relevant quote – With this being the final match for some in the Sailors class of 2022, Hafiz expressed a tinge of sadness. “We know that there will be departures within the ranks, including experienced players like Shahdan (Sulaiman) whom I’ve played with since I was 12,” he said. “We have many memories together and unfortunately, some of them won’t be with us for the new season. It’s going to be emotional for sure, but it is a day that we will remember and hopefully we can end it off with a bang.” Rumours have been floating around of us losing players like Gabriel Quak, Hassan Sunny, Izwan Mahbud, Amirul Adli, etc, and I guess my hope is that it’s not a complete clear-out because it will certainly take a while before we can get used to supporting new players, chanting new names etc. We will also miss the memories we shared with these players, many of whom were part of the title-winning squad last season. It will perhaps be interesting to see which players say prolonged goodbyes to the fans, which are usually indicative of them having played their last game for the club. I’ll try to enjoy the game tomorrow, and then deal with the sadness later. For those of you heading down tomorrow, see you for the final Post-Match Interview of the season! Come up and say hi please, don’t be a stranger!

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Happy for the Hools – What lessons the Crew can learn from them

8 Comments / Daily Musings / Eddy Hirono

These are just my opinions – if you feel offended reading any of the below paragraphs, just reach out to me and I’ll see if I can clear some stuff up. – Eddy What a great Cup final it was yesterday. Great game of football, with two great sets of supporters in the stands (plus many neutrals), and a trophy at the end of it. This was cup football at its finest. Why a Sailors fan was slightly leaning towards Hougang for the win I won’t lie – even as a Sailors fan, I was supporting Hougang this final. Lesser of the two evils, I guess. And also, I think my long friendship with the Hools made me happy for them to see them finally get rewarded for their years and years of supporting the club. And who doesn’t love an underdog story! Everyone and their mother (and Singapore Pools) was predicting a Tampines win. I also don’t really like Tampines Rovers, but my reasons for that shall stay private. I will share with you in person if you’re really curious. Before this turns into a whole post discussing why I do not like Tampines Rovers, I must turn the focus of this post back to the Hools. Perseverance and Passion When it comes to local football supporter groups, I don’t think there is any debate. The Hools and the Ultras Eagles (fans of Geylang International) are the two loudest and most organised fan groups currently. They are very passionate, and they’ve been around for a long time. I have nothing but respect for their dedication and I hope that one day, the Crew will be able to come close to the Hools in terms of their organised support. One Hool I am particularly close to is Merv. He may be a controversial figure (lots of people like to talk shit about him) but I will forever defend him because I know his passion for the club and for Singapore football is real. He also composed one (or maybe more) of the songs that the Hools use, “Satu Hati Satu Hougang”. It’s a song that’s so catchy I hate Merv for composing it because I sometimes find myself humming along to it and I hate myself for it haha. In my many conversations with him over the years, he’s been nothing but welcoming, and I appreciate that we can have this friendly rivalry in the stands, and come together to cheer whenever our national team plays. I think the take-aways from my conversations with him are that it takes time and patience to build such a strong supporter culture, and that the spirit is all-important. Once the spirit is right (the “semangat” that Merv always lovingly refers to), and there is a connection between the club, the players, and the fans, then good things can be achieved. The co-ordination of the Hools’ chants, and their togetherness is not by accident. It’s hard work and painstaking growth that has taken place since 2010/2011. It’s more than a decade in the making. But of course, followers of local football will know that week in week out, the Hools chant and chant but the club has not achieved anything of note in their history. Until last night, that is. I texted Merv to congratulate him first, and then the other Hools I knew as well. Shoutout to Alvin, Michael, Amsyar and many many others. Gutted that Sailors are not in the final, but so happy that these long-suffering fans have some reward at the end of a long period of pain. “Plastics” The Crew is often referred to as being plastic fans, or glory-hunters. This is of course, an unfair tag, given that a large number of the Crew have actually started off as Home United fans who stuck with the club despite the rebranding and privatisation. Even if they are new fans, I am not sure that we really need to attach such negative labels to Singaporeans who bother coming to a game. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I feel. People laud LCS for their marketing efforts – the pyrotechnics, the increased social media presence, the merchandising, and all that, but surely the point of all this is to attract new fans. But when the new fans turn up, they are labelled as “plastics” – what gives? Must we shame our fellow Singaporeans who decide to attend our games because there is now a much better matchday experience? (erhem, aside to certain club’s Chairman who calls us plastic at every opportunity and somehow found it appropriate to sneak this same reference in into his obituary to the late FAS President Lim Kia Tong) No. Let’s welcome these new fans, to whatever club they want to support. Be it Geylang or Hougang or Albirex or Tampines, why are we giving labels to people? Surely whether or not they are plastic depends on whether they will stick with their club through thick and thin. LCS imploded spectacularly this year, so let’s see whether the Crew sticks around next year, or if everyone just gives up. I know where I’ll still be next year, and the years after that. Let’s support each other There’s a reason I am bringing this up now. I was so encouraged that the brilliant cup final last night sparked so much interest. Tampines and Hougang both played a part in ensuring that at the end of the night, local football was the winner. The goals were of a very good quality, and both teams played positive, flowing football. The action even sparked a Reddit thread in r/Singapore that is doing quite well. Do check it out here (https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/yzz59p/why_you_should_watch_local_football_its_actually/). Clearly the writer of that post is super passionate about local football, so much so that he’s decided to write a whole post about it to encourage his fellow Singaporeans to come down to a game. Now, I call upon all of us, Sailors fans included, let’s welcome

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Should Fans be Worried about Forrest Li / SEA Losing Money?

1 Comment / Daily Musings / Eddy Hirono

You’ve seen the news. Sensational headlines about how Forrest Li’s wealth has crashed, and how he’s only worth US$4.7 billion now, as opposed to US$22 billion sometime back when SEA shares were worth a ton. (Only US$4.7 billion huh! How I wish I was worth even US$4.7 million haha) For the longest time, these news, plus rumours and confirmed statements of SEA/Shopee employees being let go made me wonder – should we as LCS fans be worried? Will there be cost-cutting measures that will result in our players and non-playing staff leaving? I tried to do some research myself. I downloaded the Corporate Compliance and Financial Profile of Lion City Sailors Private Limited off ACRA, and tried to take a look at the financials to see what they could tell me. Well, ok that didn’t tell me anything much. First thing I noticed is this profile was perhaps purchased too early – 2022 hasn’t ended, so I cannot see the financial data for this year, which is when most of the drama happened at SEA. But what could I make of the rest of the stats? Some initial thoughts – if you zoom in on revenue, you will see that for 2020, we had S$3 million revenue, and the next year, we had S$13.6 million revenue. LCS is a private limited company so they do not need to disclose exactly to the public where they get their revenue from. But even from a rough estimate, you sense that academy fees, merchandise sales and ticket sales are not gonna give us S$13.6 million. You can do some quick math if you’d like – but let’s take ticket sales. If you take an optimistic figure of 4000 tickets sold every game (the truth is far from this), then you’re still not cracking a million dollars if you take the figure and multiply it over 14 home games last season. And how did our revenue increase from 3 million to 13.6 million over one year? Surely the re-opening of stadiums after COVID had some impact, but this was way too much. It is more likely than not that this is an injection from Garena Ventures Private Limited, which is the sole shareholder of LCS. Note also that Garena Ventures is a subsidiary of SEA Limited. This part may get confusing – I’ll address this later. Anyway, the point is – there is nothing much conclusive I could see from the financial reports. So I knew I had to call in someone who knew way more about this than myself. Enter Anthony, childhood friend of mine I’ve known since I was 7. Nowadays he is one of the hosts on a local financial podcast called The Financial Coconut, and I thought, hey, let’s get him to talk about the financial situation at SEA/Shopee/LCS and whether or not I should be worried. Conclusion Long story short – we shouldn’t be worried because from LCS’s statements, it looks like we’re spending 8 figure-sums max, tens of millions. That’s a fraction of Forrest Li’s net worth – that is also a fraction of the figures we’re talking about when it comes to SEA. Anthony and I go into a deep dive in our podcast episode, and we even talk about how LCS could go about signing Cristiano Ronaldo if we needed to (haha). Do check it out! Click here – https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Tx8WeEOeVgvfdGVV28Gf3?si=6d8b3ed9491c4955 Oh, and may the best team win in the Singapore Cup final later!

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Post-Match Thoughts – Too Little Too Late (LCS 1 Albirex 2)

Leave a Comment / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

Much, much improved from our previous games. In yesterday’s post (https://sailorfantalk.com/2022/11/04/albirex-match-preview-play-for-the-badge/), I asked for the players to show fight – “That’s all we ask for – give us a performance that we can be proud of, so that whatever the result, we can feel that they’ve done their best.” They certainly delivered. It was a much more gutsy performance, and right from the first whistle, it looked like it was only going to be a matter of time before the Sailors would open the scoring. Faris was leading the press up top with vigour, Anu was snapping into challenges even after receiving a harsh yellow. Hariss rolled back the years with a combative display in midfield. Bill Mahmadou was also switched on right from the start. Everyone put in the hard yards, and was not shy of making challenges to try to get the ball back for us. And so it was pretty sad that the first goal went to Albirex. They had struggled in the first half to mount any meaningful attack, and then the ref gave them a soft freekick at the edge of our area. This was to be a theme all night as the inept referee repeatedly turned a blind eye to fouls by the Albirex players. Up stepped set-piece expert Idetsu, and he curled it into the near post, past Izwan. An undeserved lead, and it left us with a mountain to climb. However, we didn’t seem that affected. The players still played the better football, but crucially couldn’t finish. Gabriel, Diego Lopes, Faris Ramli, all had great opportunities to get a goal but it didn’t happen until Hami Syahin’s switched pass was brought down by Maxime Lestienne, who then faked out the Albirex defence before passing it coolly into the bottom corner. 1-1, game on. Except it wasn’t to be. As the Sailors pushed forward, gaps were left at the back, and Kodai Tanaka stepped up to kill the hopes off. The Young Lions game was the problem As stated above, I think the players were blameless this game. They gave it all they got. Where I think we lost it, was against Balestier Khalsa and the Young Lions, but especially the Young Lions game. No attacking urgency, sloppy in midfield and defence, we deserved nothing from that game. Unfortunately, those 2 games not being capitalised on have come back to bite us on our ass hard. And sadly, across the 3 games, we deserve to go out. It was thus our last game of the season. We will have tons of time to look into why the season finished the way it did, and what the Sailors should do for next season. For now, I think it’s fair to say that these standards fall way short of the standards needed to play for the Lion City Sailors. Good in the last game, but abysmal the two games before. Till next time.

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Albirex Match Preview – Play for the Badge

2 Comments / Daily Musings, Match Previews / Eddy Hirono

Let’s face it, our Sailors have not played well in the last 2 months. Whatever the reason for that downfall is, we now find ourselves in a position where we only have 2 points from our opening games in the Singapore Cup, when they were games against the bottom 2 in the league. The one that hurt most will be the game against Young Lions – we play in the Mitsubishi Electric AFF Cup in December, and a team boasting so many Singapore internationals cannot beat a team with one Singapore international, and no foreigners. It was dreadful. Pre-match comments from the players (see A fight for the badge, our fans – and pride – Lion City Sailors FC) indicate that they are eager to make amends, with Hariss Harun saying this – “We have to do it for them, for ourselves, and for the club. When we step onto the pitch, we represent the club and we have to play for the badge on our chest with pride and fire. “Play for the badge” is an oft-quoted phrase. It usually means to push yourself to your limit and to do your absolute best, to live up to the history of the badge, the club, and everything it represents. However, of course, the Lion City Sailors are a very new club. I am not so sure the history of the club is foremost on the players’ minds when they step out onto the pitch. And so perhaps a little bit of reframing would be good. Our players should think of these games as a tune-up for the AFF Cup. How’s their confidence gonna be if they’re struggling to win games against the likes of Balestier Khalsa and Young Lions? I don’t think football form is just a switch that they can turn on or off – play like crap when donning the Sailors uniform, and then come 24 December, just shake it off and do well in a Lions shirt. But if they are to play themselves into form, they are running out of opportunities to do so. This could very well be their last match tomorrow. If we fail to win, we are then left at the mercy of Young Lions and Balestier Khalsa. Any of those 2 teams win, and it’s curtains for us. Even as an ardent fan of the Sailors, I am not so sure I can say I feel confident heading into tomorrow’s game. We have failed to beat them in a league match since we rebranded as LCS, and our recent form has been very poor. I picked the Braveheart image because it’s blue and white, and also because I really hope our boys show some fight tomorrow. That’s all we ask for – give us a performance that we can be proud of, so that whatever the result, we can feel that they’ve done their best. Come on you Sailors.

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Meetup with FAS + Unexpected Appearance of a Lions Legend

Leave a Comment / Daily Musings / Eddy Hirono

Yesterday was an interesting day. I went to Jalan Besar Stadium for a meeting with FAS, along with representatives of other SPL clubs. We were supposed to meet with one of the administrators, a friendly chap named Aloysius, who is in charge of Competitions department in FAS, and has always been part of efforts to reach out to local football fans. What a surprise then to be greeted by Baihakki Khaizan, Lions centurion and legend. He introduced himself with a firm handshake, and beckoned us to follow him into the seminar room for our discussion. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss a fan club tournament to kick off the SPL next season. The rough idea is to do a 5v5 or 7v7 one-day tournament involving all the fan clubs, and do a mini-carnival where all the clubs can put up a booth to showcase themselves. The purpose of this would be to generate a bit of hype before the start of the season, and also to create more awareness about the fan clubs, and hopefully get more people to join and be passionate supporters of the local game through the respective clubs. Of course, there was also lots of chat about the upcoming AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup, and what improvements can be made to the SPL. Some key points of discussion. Jay Chou concert meant that we could not play our games in the Sportshub There was lots of chatter online about how it is a joke that we have a multi-million dollar stadium but we are unable to play our AFF Cup home games there. Instead, we are consigned to the much-smaller Jalan Besar Stadium. FAS Secretary-General Yazeen Buhari popped by during our meeting and explained how this happened. When AFF first gave dates for the AFF Cup to take place, they said it would be sometime in January 2023. As such, FAS worked with Sportshub to reserve the month of January for Lions games. Jay Chou’s concerts take place on 17 and 18 December 2022. Yazeen said that to Sportshub’s credit, they did not resist much when the request to book the month of January was made, given the importance of hosting national team games there, and they made sure no commercial bookings were made for that month. However, by the time AFF confirmed the dates, it then came to be that our first home game would be on 24 December against Myanmar, a mere 6 days after the Jay Chou concert. Some of us were curious – was it truly impossible to prepare the venue for the game if there’s a 6-day gap between the concert and our first game? Yazeen told us it was impossible – the Sportshub crew would have to wheel out the concrete surface used for Jay Chou’s concert, wheel in the grass surface used for the football games, and then it would need a further period of time for the soil and grass to truly settle in and be a stable playing surface. This will take at least 2 – 3 weeks. We know of the Sportshub’s previous struggles with grass surfaces even when we hosted huge international teams like Brazil and Japan, so I think it’s understandable that such protocols are in place to ensure the integrity of the playing surface. Playing at a smaller stadium – is it a bad thing? In my opinion, it’s not a bad thing. Jalan Besar Stadium is a unique ground in Singapore because it’s one of the few purpose-built football stadiums. The fans are so close to the pitch because there is no running track. This really allows the fans to chant and sing for 90min, and transmit that energy to the players. It was interesting that this view was backed up by Baihakki. He said a combination of factors, such as the artificial turf, the closeness to the fans, the size of the pitch, and of course, the excellent results achieved there over the years make Jalan Besar Stadium a very conducive place for our Lions to get the results we need to qualify for the knockout stages. While he understands that more fans get to go in and watch the Lions if the match was held at Sportshub, he feels that this enforced change is in no way a bad thing. VAR in the SPL Some fans expressed their concern at the refereeing standards in the SPL, and were not confident that VAR would be of much help. My opinion is that it should help, given that referees have a very difficult task of watching multiple things going on at the same time, plus they are also called upon to make snap decisions that can greatly influence the outcomes of games. As Sailors fans, we have both benefitted and been screwed by such decisions this season – but I feel like we should take a step back and realise that this happens everywhere in the world. VAR should help because it buys time for the referee to look at the incident with various angles, and be in discussion with the rest of his team to arrive at the best decision. It may cause delays, but at least in my opinion it will lead to the correct decision more often. Baihakki told us that he knows what we go through as fans, and he does feel that perhaps modern referees lack the human touch of the great refs of the previous era, such as Shamsul Maidin, and Abdul Malik. Aloysius then explained further that VAR needs to be implemented sooner or later, or we will not be able to host AFC tournaments, and also our referees would become obsolete – who wants a referee at big tournaments who has zero experience dealing with VAR? Basically, we’re just keeping up with the times. Other stuff Talked about a lot of other stuff as well, but I guess the main snippet I want to remember is this – Yazeen looked at me

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POST-MATCH THOUGHTS – BLUE (YOUNG LIONS 1 LCS 1)

3 Comments / Post-Match Thoughts / Eddy Hirono

Well, that was bleak. In my post previewing the Young Lions game, I talked about how it was a must-win game. I also spoke about how Young Lions were missing Raoul Suhaimi, one of their most promising players. Yesterday, when the line-ups came out, two things stood out to me. 1) Jordan Emaviwe wasn’t playing. He’s been their key attacking outlet, so this was definitely good for us. Their “striker” was a central midfielder. 2) Bizarrely, we chose to line up with only 1 recognised defender. I was hoping to see lots of goals in the first half, because I had to leave at half-time to go play in the Fan Club Futsal League. The Crew had a match against Olympique Marseille Fan Club (we got smacked 11-0 haha), and I had high hopes of seeing the Sailors kill off the game in the first half. Instead, I was treated to a lacklustre display where players seemed to not want to take any risks when they circulated the ball, passing it about in a U shape. Try to visualise it – but basically the passes would go from left wing back to central midfield, back to Anu, Anu passes it to Amirul Adli, who then passes it to his right, and then it ends up at the wing again, and they do the same thing the other way round this time. It was painful to watch. There were also moments when the Young Lions started playing tiki-taka football. It is not often you get to associate the Young Lions with dynamic one-touch passing moves, but it happened, and it unfolded right before my eyes. I guess if I wanna be truly optimistic I can be happy that Singapore has some young players who are able to play good football. But as a Sailors fan, it was horrifying to watch. This is real football, not FIFA Also, is it just me, or does anyone else think it was absolutely crazy to play so many non-defenders in a back 4? Anu has deputised there this season on a number of occasions but I think even he himself would not say he excelled in his stints there. Then on the fullback positions it gets more bizarre. Hafiz Nor at rightback we’ve gotten accustomed to seeing due to long-term injury to Mamat, and the expulsion of Tajeli – but this time he was shifted to leftback. Rightback Haiqal Pashia? He’s never played there before in his life I think – please correct me if I am wrong. Was this arrogance? Tactically naive? I don’t know what it was, but what I do know is that when you’re trying to score a lot of goals to rack up goal difference, it’s not as simple as sticking on as many attackers as possible. I can only assume that this was Lalic’s idea of squeezing in as many goal threats as possible. However, how can people attack with conviction, if they know that behind them, their teammates might not be equipped to deal with a counter-attack? This isn’t FIFA, where defending is easy as long as your players are fast. Defence is an art, managing the gaps, dictating the height of the line, knowing when to push up, and when to drop back, etc etc etc. I felt that the defenders seemed not to know when they should press higher, and when they should drop off. When things got tougher and they came under pressure, I felt they dropped too deep. But can I blame them? No I don’t think so. When you have Iqram Rifqi on your bench, and you decide to play Hafiz Nor as your leftback, I have to ask “Bro, what?” The shocking own goal And then we come to the incident just before half-time. Was it Amirul Adli’s fault? Izwan? Both? I would say both, but I lean towards Amirul Adli more I think. It’s almost half-time, the stadium announcer had already loudly announced that there was only gonna be 1 minute of injury time. A hopeful long punt forward saw Amirul Adli do well to get in front of his opponent – and he would have seen that he was being chased down. The whistle was gonna blow very soon – why not just clear it to the sides? For Izwan, goalkeepers are sometimes told to stand to the side as well, so that even if they fail to trap any backpass, the ball will go out for a corner. Well, no need for me to relive the goal for you. If you haven’t watched it yet, do go and see it. It has to be seen to be believed. These are our national team players. Kim Shin Wook – should he have been sent off? Yes. Not much debate here. The answer is Yes. We got away with it. That he managed to score after that will make Young Lions feel even more shit. Conclusion We now need to beat Albirex – something we have only done once in our history. I have to say I am not confident, but with Maxime and Diego, you never quite know. Stay tuned for Zach’s in-depth tactical analysis. That should be out tonight.

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Author name: Eddy Hirono