Author name: Eddy Hirono

The goals may have captured the imagination of the fans at the stadium, and watching on at home, but to me, what really caught the eye was the immense defensive effort put in by the team. If we defended like this in our league games, I am pretty sure we’d still be unbeaten this season. What stuck out to me? Let’s take a quick look (because I haven’t written the preview for tomorrow’s game). Maxime was Defending! Prior to Maxime scoring THAT goal, I had a friend text me to say Maxime was having a poor game. I think if you’re focusing on offensive output, then yeah sure, it wasn’t as high as his usual standards, but it was understandable because of the amount of defending he was asked to do. Often in the first half, with the score still at 0-0, he was behind the ball, forming a midfield block with the rest of his midfielders. Here you see him winning the ball in midfield, before sprinting forward to take up an offensive position. And here you see him, back in position to ensure there is no overload on the left side. While he obviously wasn’t making tackles galore or intercepting every pass like N’Golo Kante, his presence there was crucial in ensuring we were hard to break down. He wasn’t the only one, of course. Lennart Thy put in a huge shift shutting down players from the front, while Bart Ramselaar defiinitely did more defending in this 1 game than he has in his entire time playing SPL games. It’s just surprising because Maxime is usually the “luxury player” allowed to drift around upfront and “cheat”. “Cheating” of course, is the term used to describe the practice of not dropping back on defence in the hope that when your teammates win the ball back, you are free to pounce without your defender on you. Having seen how our Sailors can do this, I am hoping that we can similarly repeat such performances when we come up against the likes of Balestier, Geylang, Tampines in the league as well. Let’s not assume that these sides are not worth the effort. Teams like Man City and Arsenal only achieved the consistency they did in the league last season because they took every team seriously. Defensive Focus In a performance full of defensive grit and focus, it is difficult to single out any player for praise. Everyone did their job perfectly. However I’d like to highlight the focus of the team, and in particular Bart Ramselaar, who often times felt like the defensive organiser of the forward line. Here you see him gesturing towards Lionel hurriedly to get back into position. What happened here was that Lionel had just won the ball brilliantly against his opponent, and then found an opportunity to burst forward. Instead of releasing a pass to one of his attacking teammates, he decided to go it alone, and eventually lost the ball. Both Bart Ramselaar and Lennart Thy were furious at the missed opportunity and started berating Lionel, but just 2 seconds later, Bart immediately switched back to match mentality, and urged Lionel to get back into his position quickly. Check it out if you want at 62:09 of the game. We were excellent at the back, but much of the good work started from the front. The Goals These goals will live long in the memory. In a post-match interview with Lionel, he pointed out that some members of the dressing room saw parallels between Hariss’s “goal” in the Champions in Blue music video, and also the goal that he scored against Zhejiang. He wasn’t the only one to spot it, I spoke to some fans in the stands who also immediately saw the funny side of it. Hariss’s goal came at a time when we had been putting more pressure on the Zhejiang goal – but to be honest, it was merely half-chances and speculative shots from range hit straight at the keeper, nothing very threatening. When the goal finally came, it was an accurate Izwan kick that started it all. He was quick to spot that Maxime had gone into a pocket of space on the left wing, and a direct ball found him with time and space. He put in a good ball for Lennart to attack, but it went just beyond him. Lennart then did well with Hami Syahin to keep the play alive before finally the ball broke to Hariss and he lashed it in from range. I think the keeper could have done slightly better, but I am not complaining. Maxime’s goal was a stunner too – but maybe more stunning for the keeper than it was for us. We are simply so used to his brilliance week in week out that I am sure some of us knew exactly what he was gonna do there. He was gonna do the keeper like he did Syazwan Buhari about 25 times in the past. Look at his eyes in the replay of the goal. He never once looks towards goal – he can sniff it without having to look at it. He gave the keeper the eyes, and faked him out – the keeper definitely thought he was going for a cross or a pass. We all know what happened next. So cool. Conclusion This was much better than the Borneo game wasn’t it! Let’s play like this all the time, guys. Full commitment, defensive solidity, and a good gameplan. We limited Zhejiang to two good chances, and these came after we had already taken the lead. Both times, Izwan Mahbud came to the rescue. In midfield, Hami and Hariss put in a professional, tidy performance full of hard running. At the back, our 3 centrebacks kept it safe. Everyone did their bit, and did it excellently. On to the next game today, a tough one against Balestier Khalsa! Written by Eddy Hirono If you’d like to support the work

Being sick like a dog is no fun, and it would have 100% sucked more if our Sailors didn’t win. Was there a little trepidation when I saw that this was a lineup devoid of our big foreign stars? Yes. But then be careful what you wished for, right? A few weeks back in the lead-up to the Geylang game, I had this to say. Well, it turned out fine in the end, let’s dive into some post-match thoughts yesterday from me watching under my blanket. The Need for Rotation + Rasaq is Back! The lineup was inevitable given that we have 6 games in 22 days coming up. The break was nice but those games will really catch up on our players’ legs. You look at our opponents coming up every 3 or 4 days, and who else would you leave Maxime Lestienne and Lennart Thy out against? Zhejiang, Balestier Khalsa, Cong An Ha Noi, BG Tampines Rovers, and Port FC. That is some insane schedule of quality opponents. But I guess that’s what you become a professional footballer for – to play in the best tournaments, and against the best teams. Domestically, Tampines Rovers are unbeaten, while Balestier Khalsa is probably the team in the league that plays the most attractive brand of football. Regionally, all three foreign teams come from leagues stronger than ours, and we will need to be at our absolute best to get anything out of those games. Yesterday was thus the right match to rotate. And while we looked a bit tentative at the start, and I did wonder where the inspiration would come from, TPU did us a huge favour by conceding a bone-headed penalty, which allowed Abdul Rasaq to step up and score a goal on his comeback start. It has been a long time out for him, so I totally understand the emotion. Some people don’t though. I’ll be charitable. Maybe this is a fan who doesn’t remember the full context of Rasaq’s circumstances – his injury stopping him from building on a very promising first season . His comeback being filled with little setbacks and eventually coming back to the pitch, slowly in the U21 league, and then finally, in the SPL. Or maybe I won’t be charitable. This person probably has the intellectual capacity of a stool (furniture or fecal matter, both work). If he is a Sailors fan, we are better off without him. If he is a fan of an opposing team, then bro, get a life. Lcarteblanche? More like Lcutyour fingersoffyoushittyasskeyboardwarrior. Carmona – Maxime Lestienne in Disguise So Carmona went and casually dropped 3 assists this game. On a day where we wondered where the service was gonna come from, he answered it quite emphatically. 3 brilliant left-footed crosses from him led to goals from Adam Swandi, Lennart Thy, and Shawal Anuar. The crucial first goal also came about because of his incisive through pass behind the defensive line – Obren took it on, got fouled, and then Rasaq put the penalty away. After that, some idiot took to Instagram to comment “its just a penalty smh“. First, it’s “it’s”, not “its”. “It’s” is short for “it is”, whereas “its” is used to signify ownership. Second, the person didn’t even have the guts to use his real account to comment, had to use some burner account. What a coward. Third, I realise I have an issue and I really can’t let go of grudges. Ok enough with this digression. Carmona provided inspiration on a day where we badly needed it, and I hope this does wonders for his confidence. I am sure he will have been a little shaken by the 5-0 defeat to Tampines, so this is perhaps the best cure for that. Ok I really can’t let it go. I need help. Anu, why, why, Anu, why? That has to be what was going through everyone’s mind yesterday. It was a rare start for him, and he was playing oh-so-well. Snapping into challenges like there was no tomorrow, keeping the momentum up for us in midfield, and it was a really tidy performance – UNTIL THE RED CARD. I can’t quite understand why he did it, and if I were to create an excuse for him, it would be because he was enjoying himself too much. On a few occasions I felt, wow, this is the old Anu. We’ve missed this! And I think the over-exuberance got to him too. It was a terrible decision though, that has wider repercussions. We’ve spoken about the fixture congestion, and we’ll need everyone we have in the squad. For one of our most experienced players to do this, it’s just sad, but it is what it is. I am sure the coach will have some harsh words for Anu. The fact that we were already 3-0 up and up a man will not be lost on the coach – there was absolutely no need to do that. Lennart Thy He started on the bench, but yet was able to come up with 2 very well-taken goals. That takes him up to 9 goals and 3 assists in 12 appearances in the league for us. Pretty good for someone described in some quarters as a flop. Hoping to see him lead us to some silverware this season! And then there was this. Watching it at home I could hear the Crew singing this at the top of their lungs, and it really made me smile. Nice that the commentators picked up on it too! A touch of humour is sometimes necessary because football gets a bit emotional and aggressive at times. This reminds us that at the end of the day, we are just fans and we are all here to have a good time. Adam Swandi Last but not least. Thoughts and prayers for Adam Swandi. It’s always scary when a player goes down without anyone touching him. Thankfully we have this update from him.

Well, that was expected wasn’t it? As predicted in the preview, Tomoyuki Doi and Noor Ali would give us some trouble and a win was not going to be straightforward. There can be some regret this morning because even though I think we didn’t play well enough to deserve all 3 points, we were in a good position to take the 3 points after two moments of quality from the Bart-Maxime pair that led to two goals. On the bright side, Tampines also dropped points, unexpectedly to a resurgent Hougang team, so their lead doesn’t widen. We could have gone top of the table though! Let’s dive right into the post-match thoughts. Bart and Maxime Let’s start with the positives. Moments of quality from the pair of them, a goal and an assist each. Bart was pushed and bodied on the way to scoring his goal but managed to just keep his feet enough to poke the ball in past Rudy Khairullah – just brilliant. Maxime did Maxime things – a goal and an assist for him a just reward for his efforts yesterday. Oh, another positive, while I was away in Jordan, I could hear from the stream that the fans were really loud, and importantly, still having a lot of fun. Just amazing. Both Teams Sloppy Perhaps due to recent results, both teams seemed to lack any attacking fluency in the first half. Coach Ranko touched on this in the post-match interview, saying that the decision-making wasn’t the best sometimes when they were attacking Geylang and were presented with 4v4 opportunities or 4v3 opportunities. I’d go a bit further than that, I’d say not only was the decision-making sometimes poor, it was the execution as well, even if the decision was correct. How many times did we see what was seemingly an easy pass roll out for a throw-in, or be hit with so little pace such that the Geylang defender could intercept it easily? Thankfully for us, this disease seemed to hit Geylang too in the first half. That was a major contributing factor towards both teams’ disjointed performances and I can’t recall any shots of note in the first half. The second half got better and we created more chances, but unfortunately we failed to finish some of them. Is Finishing the Issue? Coach Ranko also touched on the finishing not being as good as we hoped for, indicating that had we been able to finish better, we would have won. I don’t necessarily agree that finishing is the issue. Did we really test Rudy Khairullah and Hairul Syirhan a lot? I don’t think so. Two occasions come to mind when we talk about better finishing. First, the Lennart Thy header off a fantastic Maxime cross – that was eventually saved by Hairul Syirhan expertly when he jumped into the air and made himself huge. Second, the Shawal Anuar chance when he had the whole goal to aim at but only succeeded in shooting at the Geylang defender on the line, with the goalkeeper taken out of the equation. Do we score these on another day? I’d say yes. We’ve been unlucky in a sense that for the past two games, the opposition goalkeeper has pulled off an insane save at a crucial point of the game. However, you can’t just blame luck. I’d say that the bigger problem is that we are not creating more clear-cut chances. Games like these happen – your opposing goalkeeper will suddenly have the best game of his life, your striker might miss a sitter, you might hit the post, the ball takes a weird bobble in front of goal, etc. A team like Sailors should be able to shake that off, and just go about creating the next chance, and the next, and the next. Is that too much to ask for? I don’t think so. I think with the calibre of players at our disposal, we should work out a system where we are doing it more consistently rather than just playing on the break, which we did for about 2/3 of the game yesterday. Is Lionel Tan the Issue? Lionel Tan is as much at fault for the defeat yesterday as Shawal Anuar and Lennart Thy, and arguably I’d say even Rui Pires. I know it’s a cliched statement, but you win and lose together as a team. Was it a rash challenge by Lionel, going in too fast and too strong and misjudging the situation? Yes, it undoubtedly was. But that’s one bad decision. How can a player be scapegoated for making one bad decision in a game which requires you to make hundreds of decisions over the course of 90min? I think as fans, we have a tendency to pick out easy targets. I am not immune to this as well. I tend to fixate on goalkeeper errors, or centreback errors more than those errors made further upfield. When a ball is passed from the centreback into midfield, and it’s underhit, I immediately blame the centreback. The crowd also shouts “HEY JUST CLEAR IT!” It’s natural, we don’t like danger, we don’t like the uncertainty that comes with it. In the example of build-up play, I’d say that there’s a larger picture in mind – certain risks have to be taken and when we all calm down and think about it, we realise that we can’t be clearing every ball. Sometimes, we need to take those risks to draw our opponents onto us, and create the space that we need to attack. But back to Lionel and his challenge. It was a poor decision, but in my opinion, no poorer than the many decisions made by his teammates over the course of 90min which led to us only having a 1-goal advantage. Song, for example, how many times did he give the ball away? I’ll dedicate a section to him. There are some worrying signs, in my opinion. Rui Pires – what I like

Expectedly, Coach Ranko started a strong team in our opening match for the Shopee Cup. Rather unexpectedly, our team seemed completely off as they struggled to adapt to a terrible pitch that was reminiscent of Toa Payoh Stadium on its worst days. However, in this short piece (I still haven’t packed for Jordan and I leave tonight), I will talk about some observations of mine and why I don’t feel we can say that the defeat only came because of the pitch or because of other factors such as poor refereeing. Terrible Pitch The pitch looked bad before the game, but it was only when it started did we see how bad it was. Both sides struggled with the ball, but of course our Sailors struggled with it even more. You could see it in the passing – gone was the usual zip in our passes, or any pretty passing patterns. Our players were underhitting or overhitting their passes, struggling to make sense of the pitch. There seemed to be a certain fear, a certain tentativeness, and our opponents seemed to cope much better with the pitch as the game went on (even if it did screw up a couple of their own attacks due to the unpredictable nature of the bounce of the ball when dribbling/passing). But I won’t go so far as to blame the pitch – I think as a team, we have to adapt better. First, this is not even Borneo FC’s home stadium – so we can’t even say they are much more familiar with the pitch than we are. They just adapted to it way better. Second, I think it is on the players and the management to see how they can prepare better for such games. The Shopee Cup takes us to different parts of Southeast Asia, with differing financial standards, and differing standards of facilities. Unlike the ACL last season where we travelled to Hong Kong and South Korea and played in world-class stadiums, the Shopee Cup will bring with it days like last night’s. Could the coaching team have arranged training sessions in Choa Chu Kang Stadium to try to prepare for such games? In Singapore, we’ve been somewhat spoilt with the predictable nature of artificial turf and also the nicely-manicured surfaces in our Mattar Road training centre. Our big-name players as well, will have been brought up in world-class academies. This is not something they will be used to – let’s learn from this and prepare better next time. Third, could the in-game tactics be tweaked to not just counter, but take advantage of this pitch? In this kind of game, you need to take advantage of the unpredictability, and avoid getting caught in build-up play. Shawal Anuar should have been brought on earlier. You avoid alot of the problems of getting caught in possession by going a little more direct, and Shawal is exactly the sort of player you want chasing down long diagonal passes. Just go back to an article on this website about 1.5 years ago – we wrote about how Shawal has a great first touch. But unlike the feted first touches of players like Iniesta and Berbatov where they kill the ball dead and then play it, Shawal is an expert in using his first touch to beat players by knocking it past them. I’ll let you read our analysis back then. All in all, a very disappointing failure to adapt to the conditions was one of the main factors that led to last night’s result. It’s still very early, so let’s learn from this. Not a Second Yellow Card Rui’s first yellow card was deserved. The second? If that’s a yellow card, everytime I shake hands with someone I should be sent to prison. Absolute nonsense. The slightest of contact left Berguinho rolling on the floor like a …. I don’t quite know what would do justice to this sentence. He rolled on the floor like a thing. Like a thing conceived after Neymar had a lovechild with a rolling pin. Anyway, there was barely any contact and it came a minute after Rui was shown the first yellow. Surely the referee could have given him a talking-to even if he felt it was a bad challenge? We weren’t playing that well and I wouldn’t dare say that had Rui stayed on the pitch, we would definitely have overcome the deficit and equalised or even won the game. But a bad decision is a bad decision, and the referee made a huge error here. Individual Errors – Team Responsibility I am quite annoyed by the constant chatter surrounding our defenders / midfielders after a defeat. It’s always sack this guy, replace that guy, bench this other guy. Rui made 2 big errors last night. The first was when he failed to track Gaucho at a setpiece, and he scored. We knew about their prowess from crosses and setpieces, so I think Rui should be very disappointed by what happened. He has his hands on Gaucho, then suddenly, without much happening at all, he inexplicably loses him and Gaucho scores – not the ideal way to open the game. The second is a little more unfortunate. A low cross is played in, and the idea is absolutely correct – instead of hammering it clear, Rui tries to play a pass around the corner for a very-free Hami Syahin. It would have undoubtedly led to a good counter-attack if the ball was used properly. I said in the preview article that Borneo FC is susceptible to the counter-attack, so who knows what would have happened if that pass came off. Alas, it didn’t. The ball took some unpredictable bounces on the turf, and Rui got it caught in between his feet. The son of Neymar and a rolling pin couldn’t believe his luck, and tucked it in with ease. Undoubtedly, these were his errors. And he deserves some criticism for them. But let’s not just