Author name: Eddy Hirono

After the high drama of our last game against Port FC, the next game was always gonna pale in comparison. Paling in comparison is one thing, but as I wrote in the preview, getting a win was still essential. Not only for our slim survival hopes in the Shopee Cup, but also because we are right back in league action in the blink of an eye, and we need to get into the habit of winning games. What happened on Thursday night though, didn’t just pale in comparison to the high drama of the Port game, it was SUPER routine. Now don’t get me wrong, routine doesn’t necessarily mean easy. It’s just … routine. Just like getting up to brush your teeth when your annoying alarm clock goes off despite it raining outside perfectly for you to continue sleeping – that’s not easy, but it’s routine. This was the most routine of routine wins. We didn’t have to do anything special – in fact, KL City FC didn’t even have a shot on target. There was a point in the second half where sitting 2-0 up, we were so comfortable, that the fans started to find ways to entertain themselves. Near me, a few fans started using the clappers to play their own little game, seeing who could land more hits on each other. Yes, it was that comfortable. Let’s dive right into some of the talking points for this game. No Lennart Thy It was interesting to see that Lennart Thy wasn’t in the squad at all. It probably wasn’t an injury thing, considering he just played in the friendly against Kitchee. In the Shopee Cup, we are allowed to field 6 foreigners, and on the night, they were – Toni, Bart, Sergio, Maxime, Rui, Bailey. Most people would probably think that Sergio Carmona being the youngster, he would perhaps be given less priority in an important cup tie. It is also perhaps more surprising because in the league, the foreign strikers are almost never rotated out of the side, such is other teams’ reliance on their No. 9s. But if you ask me, I think this is a good sign. It shows that there is healthy competition for places in the team, and that we have the depth to shuffle the pack around to cater for different fixtures, and also for dips in form. In this case, Shawal is in sparkling form and has been on fire this season. In 17 league games, he has 11 goals and 10 assists. In 6 games of ACL2 action, he has 4 goals and 1 assist, showing he can do it not only domestically, but against tougher opponents too. When he’s in such hot form, it is no wonder that Ranko has been using Shawal more and more in the starting 11 rather than off the bench. It is perhaps this form that has led Ranko to decide that Shawal is more than capable of leading the line, and he’d thus rather use the foreigner slot on Sergio over Chris at left-back. This decision may also have Monday’s game against DPMM in mind. In what is likely to be a difficult away game against a newly-strengthened DPMM side, Ranko will probably rely on Lennart Thy to press from the front. Monday’s lineup will be very telling. If Lennart misses out again, chances are he is either injured, or really out of favour. I think what Coach Ranko is doing is absolutely correct. Play the players who are in form, make use of that squad depth. We are in a privileged position where we have 8 foreigners that we can count on to step into the first team. The 6 who started the game against KL City, plus Lennart Thy, and Obren Kljajic. That’s some incredible depth. Might there be one more foreigner coming in this transfer window? Might there? Coach Ranko will have his hands full trying to consider all the options he has, but what I like is that he hasn’t let any big-name reputation or connections get to him. During his time at Sparta Rotterdam, Lennart Thy worked with Coach Ranko, who was Assistant Manager. It would be very easy for Coach Ranko to continue to play Lennart game after game, but in the last 2 games, he has opted for Shawal. I think this gives encouragement to the rest of the squad – if you play well, you will start. Noone (perhaps except Maxime) is undroppable. Attacking Intent In the preview article, I mentioned that both teams would perhaps try to sit tight and attack on the counter, but that being at home, we needed to come out with a bit more intensity, if not attacking intent. And although both sides lined up with three centrebacks at the back, there was no doubt that our Sailors were a bit more serious about trying to score the goals we needed to keep our slim hopes alive. From the kick-off, Bailey Wright was pushed right up into attack to attack a long ball from midfield. That was a sign of things to come. Within a couple of minutes we almost scored, when Shawal was left unmarked and his cutback almost forced an own goal. Stats don’t always tell the full story, but sometimes you can’t argue with stats like zero shots on target. KL City FC said they had a gameplan, but whatever it is that they were trying to do, it didn’t work at all. Our Sailors hardly broke a sweat, and I think it was always a matter of “when”, not “if” we were gonna score. You know how the title of the article is “Routine”? Have you ever seen a more routine corner kick goal than the one scored by Bailey Wright? In this age where there is so much emphasis on Arsenal’s setpiece routines, on how there are blockers, there are people trying to stop the keeper from getting out to the ball, etc etc

The excitement of last Thursday’s proceedings got me sick over the weekend so this took a while. During that time, I pondered different titles for this article. Heart Attack FC. Lightning Doesn’t Strike Thrice. Song on Song. Flowing Football, Flowing Tears. What The Flying Fuck. We Live 2-5 On. Ok the last one was terrible (it’s supposed to sound like “we live to fight on”). There were many possibilities, which is fitting for a night of qualification where there were many ways for us to end up in the knockout stage. But in the end, this dang Ronan Keating tune kept popping into my head – amidst the roars and high-fives and shouted gibberish, this tune rose above. Which is strange – but if you’ve read my articles before you’d know I think in a fairly strange way. So let’s jump right into the preview. There were elements of the night that felt like it was scripted. It’s like a movie you enjoy, but one you don’t know the ending of before you start watching it. Now, at the end, you can fairly say that “wow, that was amazing”, but at many points during the movie, you’re like “does the main character die”, “is everyone safe in the end”, etc etc. A night of high drama, and I gotta try to sum that up in an article. Tough. But let’s try. AFC Cup Song Where else to start except with our 3-goal hero, Song Ui-Young. There’s always been something special about Song’s performances when it comes to AFC football. It’s hard to explain it – I even posed the question to Song himself, who said we’d have to ask God for the answer. He stressed that he gives the same effort in SPL games, so he cannot explain why the special goals only come in continental ties. Perhaps there is more space to exploit in games on the continent? Or he just finds another gear on special nights and puts in a little bit extra effort. Those still don’t explain the crazy quality we see from him in the type of goals he produces. Goals 1, 2, 3 were arranged in increasing order of difficulty, as if the scriptwriters were trying to foreshadow to us, the audience, what was gonna happen. You can imagine the scriptwriter looking at the audience going “wow, you enjoyed that one huh, you ain’t seen nothing yet!” Speaking of foreshadowing, and right before we dive into the goals themselves, can I just say that during the warm-ups, Song was especially impressive with his first-time finishing. I remember in particular two first-time volleys that I thought to myself “my, my, save some for the game, my man”. Well, he did. Goal 1 The easiest of his 3 finishes, that owed a lot to suspect Port defending and also a booming Lionel Tan throw. Lionel really really enjoyed his assist by the way – as you can see by the way he spun around in delight and lost all control of his limbs while celebrating the goal. Check out the highlights video again, and look out for him on the bottom right. From that range, Song was not gonna miss, and though the finish itself was rather scrappy, you can’t argue with a goal under a minute in a match we needed to win. Goal 2 A much more difficult goal. This goal owes as much to Song as it does to Shawal and Maxime. The initial ball seeking out Shawal is nothing much, but once again, his determination keeps the chance alive, much like he did when we faced Port FC in Bangkok. He then plays a nice reverse pass to Maxime. Maxime takes his time to pick out Song – it is not a random hit-and-hope. Max sees Song making his run from outside the box, Song makes himself more obvious by putting his hand up like a primary school kid crossing the road, and Max finds him. The first-time volley is unerring, and very impressive. As commentator Rhysh Roshan Rai rightly says, many strikers miss from there, putting too much power on their finish in their eagerness to beat the keeper. Goal 3 A goal so good I have watched it an unhealthy number of times. A goal so good that it was shared on ESPN Netherlands, of all places. When this one went in, it drew wild cheers from the crowd, but also some shocked gasps. And then when it was replayed on the jumbotron in the stadium, it drew even more gasps and “woah”s. It was breathtaking in its execution – Maxime sent Asnawi to the (halal) hotdog stand, twisting him inside out before using every inch of the touchline to his advantage, floating a cross into the danger-zone for Song. By the way, Asnawi was not the only one convinced that Maxime was gonna cross it in on his left foot. The cameraman was similarly outfoxed – just check out the replay. What happens next you already know. It’s absolutely magical, and looks like a goal taken from Blue Lock. Song has no hesitation in launching himself into the air to meet Maxime’s cross, and far from just diverting the cross on target, he gives it full gun in mid-air, powering it beyond the goalkeeper, who didn’t even have time to dive. Not only was it on target, it was into the top corner. Just amazing. It was his hat-trick goal, and this brought him to 5 goals in ACL2 this season, our top-scorer in the competition, ahead of Shawal Anuar, on 4 goals. But it’s not just the number of goals, it’s also the timing of it. The Timing of the Goal Just like a well-written plot, the night needed its twists and turns. In fact, it mirrored once again our campaign as a whole, which was kinda cruel. At half-time, with the lead at 2-0, many Sailors fans didn’t dare to dream too big yet. You know the

With 3 games played in the ACL2, we sat on a very tidy 7-points tally, having just defeated Port FC away from home in an impressive 3-1 victory. Depending on results, victory in the 4th game would have seen us through. That didn’t happen. We came into this 5th game knowing a win would have sent us through. That didn’t happen. And now it looks like having put ourselves in a commanding position midway through the campaign, we are in danger of pissing it all away at the end. If you think about it, our points tally in the group has been a little like how we performed against Persib and Zhejiang in the last 2 games. Get an early lead, give the fans tons of hope, and then end in absolute disaster. The only difference? We still have a chance to remedy the situation in the group, whereas those 2 games are gone already and no amount of gnashing of teeth or regretting will bring those games back. So how did we throw this one away this time? Here are some of my thoughts. The Persib Loss was Worse Just typing that title is painful. You shouldn’t have to compare between two devastating results like that. Especially when it’s in consecutive games. It’s like asking someone whether they’d rather be heavily constipated, or have a terrible bout of diarrhoea. Whatever the answer, it’s still shit. A list of reasons for why I feel though, that the Persib loss is worse. Standing in the away end in Zhejiang, I could honestly say that I have some sympathy for the conditions the players had to play in – it was really cold and I am sure some players adapted to that better than others. To do that for 90min against a top opponent can’t be easy. Also – I think the achievement to go 2 up away from home deserves more credit. In the first half, the gameplan was perfect. Zhejiang was reduced to nothing but half-chances, and their fans grew increasingly frustrated at the lack of action. To cap off an impressive first half with a goal made it even better. The second goal came from a moment of brilliance from Song, who has previous when it comes to AFC competition. I think there is a tendency to feel a lot worse about such results because of the promising position we put ourselves in – but credit has to be given for being in that position in the first place. And contrary to what some critics have said – no we didn’t go into a 2-goal lead because we played attacking football and hence we lost the lead because we started parking the bus after the 2-goal lead. We were already playing defensive football from the get-go – it’s just easier to defend when your opponents are not playing their best players. And that brings us to … The Introduction of Franko and Kouassi – Plus a Lack of Legs Sometimes, we have to look not just at ourselves, but also what our opponents did. Unlike the Persib game where I felt there was a complete implosion and Persib barely deserved to get their 3 points, Zhejiang were much the better team in the second half, even if we did get a Song goal that looked to provide us enough buffer. Kouassi was about a million times more dangerous than Debeas was in the first half, while Franko slowly started to pull the strings in attack in a way that Gao Di never did in the first half. When your opponent brings on such quality from the bench, it can be harder to cope. When we caught up with Coach Rankovic after the game, this was a factor he pointed to. He said that we have to see who comes off our bench, and who comes off their bench. I am not sure I fully agree with that. I think when we are clearly the underdog team, we might need to consider that energy can sometimes give us a better chance at victory than pure footballing ability. Our players looked dead on their feet entering the last 10min. If you look at the 4th goal, Rui Pires is jogging back instead of putting pressure on Li Tixiang, a player I marked out in the preview as being one to keep tabs on because of his playmaking quality. He was allowed the freedom of the middle of the pitch to stride forward, and play a pass behind our defence. Unacceptable. I love Maxime as well, and his quality was what even put us ahead in the first place, with that deadly freekick that Datkovic converted. However, I am of the belief that noone is safe from criticism. Whether his legs were gone, or whether his head was gone, he stopped running once we went 3-2 down. That is unacceptable. If it was his head that was gone, then he needs to be reminded harshly that he wears the Sailors shirt and needs to give every ounce of effort, ESPECIALLY when the chips are down. Nothing more frustrating for supporters who have stood in the cold for 90min, chanting and clapping, than to see someone give up, especially when he is our best and highest-paid player. If it was because his legs were gone, then the blame turns to the coach. If a player’s legs are gone, his legs are gone, take him out of the pitch. In a game where alot of the threat came from the wings, we desperately needed players who can run back from midfield and attack to help the defenders. Take the 2nd Zhejiang goal for example. Chris is outnumbered 3 to 1 here on the left flank. You’d think Maxime is near the player furthest right on the screen, but he isn’t. 7 seconds later, after Chris and Lionel unsuccessfully double up on the guy in red to try to win the ball off him,

Fuck fuckity fuck. Fucking fucked-up fuckfest of a fucking end to a fucking football game. Fuck! You’ll hopefully forgive me for that expletive-laden start to this post. That was probably what was going through my mind on that night in Jalan Besar, which was more than a couple of nights ago now, but is still fresh in my head. And if you thought that was what was going through my mind when we conceded the third goal, you’d be wrong. That was what was going through my mind when we conceded the SECOND goal. The third goal? Well, my mind just went fucking blank. How does that happen? (If you are offended by the use of the F word, it’s your chance to close this page now, there may be more coming. Also, if this graphic triggers you, maybe don’t continue as well.) Sigh. It absolutely does not help that we looked fucking imperious in the first half. It’s like you’re eating this decadent chocolate cake oozing with goodness, and as you carry on eating, the chocolate sauce continues to ooze out from the middle of the cake. Just when you’re about to finish the cake, you realise though, that right in the middle, wasn’t actually a ball of chocolate sauce – it was a fucking alive but gangrenous rat having a fucking mad bout of fucking chocolate diarrhoea. I am sorry for that visual, but hey, I was forced to sit through some real terrible trauma last week, and I suspect if you are reading this, you were too. This is part of your therapy. Never too early to start. Before we talk about why it went down like that, let’s focus on the trauma a little first. The Trauma You’d think as an Arsenal fan I’d be used to trauma. 8-2 loss to Manchester United, 2-1 loss in the 2006 Champions League final, 6-0 loss to Chelsea in Arsene Wenger’s 1000th game, the list goes on. But a comeback like that that leaves me with flashbacks days after? I think it only really happened to me after the 2014 Suzuki Cup group stage match against Malaysia. Remember this game? To add on to Straits Times’s succinct summary, Safee Sali got Malaysia a goal and so we needed an equaliser. We got the equaliser in the 83rd minute through Khairul Amri, and it looked like we were going through to the knockout stages. But in stoppage time, the referee awarded a crazy penalty kick, and that was then followed by an empty-net goal after Hassan Sunny had joined the attack. The National Stadium was packed with 48000+ fans – imagine that. There was an explosion of emotion when we got into the equaliser. That was us going to the knockout stages! And then came the absolute sucker-punch. I can still remember Indra Putra running around the Sportshub after he made it 3-1. The Malaysian fans went mad in the stands as well. Don’t remember it? Well you can go watch it again. To be in a stadium with 48000 other Lions fans, and suffer such trauma together, I couldn’t forget that easily. I remember as well how usually well-behaved Singaporeans started throwing bottles at the referee after the final whistle – it got so bad that they transported out the tunnel and the referee had to be escorted off with the moving tunnel. I remember every minute, every image, every word uttered by those around me on that night. And I hoped never to relive that again. But such are the ups and downs of football – 10 years later, I am given the privilege of seeing Persib Bandung fans going mad in the stands, Persib’s bench players running onto the pitch before the match was over, because they knew, the match WAS over. Sheer ecstasy and disbelief, etched on each of every one of those faces. Walking out of the stadium and having to congratulate every Persib fan I see because I know if I didn’t, they would mock me. So, just congratulate them first to avoid the mocking. Still didn’t stop one fool running at me from distance shouting “WE WIN WE WIN HAHAHAHA BYE BYE SAILORS”. Fuck him. The memory as well of knowing that Port FC had scored a late winner against Zhejiang, which meant that if we could hold on to our 2-1 lead, we would have secured qualification to the next round. And then to have it all go wrong in the space of a few fucking minutes. As I type this, I know these memories will stay with me a long time. I didn’t write about the match back then though, because I didn’t have a blog or a website or anything. Maybe now that I have a website and I can share my thoughts with you guys, it will help with the recovery process. Ok so where did it all go wrong? Too Passive in Second Half? This has been mentioned many times by the fans after the game. And I think it’s quite true – but I only half-agree with it. We took off Shawal in the 65th minute. I understand that Shawal has issues with his body – Coach Ranko spoke about this at the pre-match press conference. Shawal gave us a good hour, and our opening goal of the night. What a brilliant goal it was too, but it will now join the ranks of Maxime’s brilliant curler against Tampines Rovers at OTH – goals that we cannot truly enjoy because we remember the shitty result that came with it. To be honest, at 65 minutes, with Persib barely threatening us, I genuinely thought it was an OK decision to bring in some experience. We can’t be hindsight merchants and now say that perhaps Ranko should have tried to replicate Shawal’s attacking effort upfront with someone like Abdul Rasaq or Haiqal Pashia. Hindsight is 20/20 and you don’t wanna be that fan that is always saying “I

What. A. Win. I didn’t see it coming at all, and if you had offered me a chance to take a point away from home against in my opinion, the strongest team in the group, I would have taken it, no questions asked. I suspect many supporters would have done the same, having seen us get pummeled away from home 3-0, and 5-0 this season in continental competition. Yes, Port dominated the ball, and made a heckload of passes. See below. But when it mattered, we came up with the goods. Besides goals, another key stat to look out for is big chances created – interestingly, Port had nothing on that front. Izwan hardly had a save to make all night. Let’s talk about some of what we saw in an important and potentially historic away victory that puts us in a very good place with half the group matches done. Intensity Wins Games In continental games, especially away fixtures, I would love to see how much additional effort our players have to expend. Our Sailors can be accused of taking it a little easy in domestic fixtures, but you can really see them running their socks off whenever they come up against better opposition. I don’t think it’s just a motivation issue – it simply is about survival. If you don’t run, if you don’t close down the spaces, you get punished big time on the continental stage, purely because of the greater quality of our opponents. And when we talk about intensity, our fans, especially those who have supported since the Home Utd days will think of Song Uiyoung. This season, we have not seen him at his sparkling best, but the image of Song sprinting around the pitch, sometimes seemingly like a headless chicken is one we will associate with him always. He was undoubtedly the star of the show two ACL campaigns ago, as we downed K-league side Daegu once, and almost did it twice. He was also the star of many AFC Cup games back in the red and white of Home United. I think it’s fair to say that this season, we have not seen the best of him yet. And it looked likely to continue as he blasted over when presented with a half-chance in the box. The score was 2-0 then, and I feared that it would be a costly miss. Of course, we now know that he would score from a heavily-deflected shot in the second half to seal the points for us, but I wanna talk about his intensity instead. From the first whistle, he sprinted around like a man possessed. I have been critical of Song this season in some games when I felt like he wasn’t at his best, but this was the Song I know and love. Not the biggest guy, but always pressing, always scrapping, always getting his arms and elbows and legs in the way of opponents, making it hard for them to settle. And it was this quality that brought us our crucial second goal, when he fought for the ball that wasn’t even 50-50. I think it was 30-70. Noboru always looked likely to win it. However, Song’s presence meant that Noboru didn’t get a clean connection with the ball and only managed to scuff it into an area where Shawal could pounce on and capitalise. Song’s robust presence in midfield (along with some reliable passing – 13 out of 16 successful passes) let our opponents know that we were up for the fight. While that intensity may have been set by some early Song duels, but it was seen in every single person out there. You think about how our central defensive trio reacted when put under some intense pressure in the second half, you think about how much defending Lennart Thy and Shawal Anuar had to do, often helping out as far back as in the flanks outside our penalty area, and you can see how such results are borne out of a lot of hard work. But of course, hard work alone isn’t a guarantee of success, you still need some quality. And that brings us to … Shawal Anuar the Superstar Everytime we see Shawal Anuar put in such a performance, it is worth thinking about how difficult this journey of his to the top has been. He is 33 this year and isn’t getting any younger, but some of his best football has been seen after he turned 30. Coach Ranko often calls Shawal his MVP, his superstar, and with such performances, it’s easy to see why. If you don’t know how difficult his journey was, I suggest you check out this excellent article by Straits Times writer Deepanraj Ganesan. From cleaning glass panels in shopping malls while getting paid a S$50 allowance to play, to cleaning the floor with his opponents in the ACL2, he has certainly come a long way. The first goal was a simple finish for him, set up by an inch-perfect cross by Chris van Huizen (whose name was mispronounced about 400 times by the commentator that night), but it was an example of him making the right run into the right space. I would also like to point out that Lennart Thy and Shawal Anuar both saw the play unfold, and worked together as a strike duo to make the right runs. Shawal burst into the area in front of goal, while Lennart was on his bike as well, but upon seeing Shawal in that position, occupied the area behind Shawal in case of a cutback from Chris. The second goal is by far the more impressive one. First, he had to have the instinct to sniff that the ball was going to reach him. If you watch the replay, you will see that he already started his run even when the ball was still in the air. He sensed that Song might win that aerial challenge, and while Song didn’t,