Match Previews

It’s the last game of the season for us, and it’s a dead rubber. I think I speak for all fans when I say I wish we were still in the running to qualify for the knockout stages, but it is what it is. There’s still the record for most points achieved by a Singaporean club in the AFC Champions League up for grabs, and it will be our last top-tier game for a while (we’re in ACL2 next season because our league coefficient is not good enough), so let’s cherish this match and take it in. Right, into the preview we go! Is it Really a Dead Rubber? There’s been some confusion over this. Some people still think that our Sailors can get second place if results go our way. I don’t blame them for thinking that way, but let’s clarify this! It looks like our Sailors are still in it, if you look at the points and the goal difference. Surely a win for us and Bangkok Utd beating Jeonbuk by enough goals would see us leapfrog Jeonbuk? Unfortunately, no. The rules state that in the event of two teams finishing level on points, the tiebreaker is Head-to-Head performance. In this case, Jeonbuk beat us 3-0, and we beat them 2-0. So even though we each got 1 win over the other, they did score one more goal than us, so in a Head-to-Head comparison, we lose out to them on goal difference. So even if we win 10-0 tonight and Jeonbuk lose 20-0, nothing changes, and we’re stuck in 3rd place. It is a dead rubber for Kitchee as well – even if they achieve a win, they will be on 4 points, not enough to overtake us. Hence, the deadest of dead rubbers. But there’s a record to fight for, isn’t there? The Chance to Make History Well the players have a chance to surpass the Sailors’ achievements of last year – win and they will be on 9 points, more than the 7 points last year. Call me skeptical but I am not sure this is the best motivator. The club website had this to say – Aleksandar Ranković’s team have their eyes set on writing their names into the Singapore football history books – by setting a new record for the maximum number of points a Singaporean team has attained in the ACL group stage. “We deserved a better result against Bangkok, but we’re totally prepared and motivated for this match. We want to finish strong, especially after the Singapore Cup final, and we want maximum points from tomorrow’s match,” said Ranko, adamant that his charges are not still swooning over the weekend’s Cup Final victory, and instead are determined to bounce back from the loss against Group F leaders Bangkok United on 29 November. “With the format change in the ACL (the Sailors will be in the ACL2 next season), this will be our last chance in this competition and we want to leave our own legacy.” I am not sure I am convinced, haha. I think the players and the coach want it – but I think it is human to not be as motivated as when there is a tangible prize at stake, say a cup, or qualification to the next stage. Leaving a legacy is well and good but I am not sure many people can remember who was in the SAFFC team that previously set a record for the most number of points in the Champions League group stage back in 2010. Can you even name 5 players from the team that beat Henan Jianye? (Fun fact – regular SPL commentator Rhysh Roshan Rai, who sometimes reads SFT articles, is one of them) Regardless, it is the last match of the season for our players, while Kitchee still has a game at the weekend. Alot of intangible factors might come into play here, all of which we have no insight into. Will Kitchee players conserve their legs in view of the weekend’s game? Will our Sailors already mentally be on their holidays? Will we give minutes to players who have not played much or players who are already leaving as a farewell? It’s really hard to say. One thing that we can look forward to though, is the return of a “fan favourite”, Kim Shin Wook. Return of the Wookie Wookie has not had a good time at Kitchee. I take you back to my preview article where I had this to say about him – But how has our Wookie fared since he transferred to Kitchee? Not well, apparently. Go take a look at the highlights from my interview with Kitchee fans Edmund and Tim – pretty scathing. Last season, Wookie finished with the now-overused 007 meme, as he recorded 0 goals and 0 assists in 7 appearances. (I say overused but yet I still use, lol) This season, he has only seen gametime against much inferior opposition. He took to the pitch and scored a hattrick against semi-pro opposition, and just last weekend, he played in a 6-2 victory in the league, but when he was subbed on, he managed to miss a penalty, and also the rebound (which would not have counted anyway because it came off the crossbar). Apparently he approached the hardcore fans and apologised to them for his performance and looked tearful. It pains me to say this because I’ve always liked him, but it’s not going well for sure.  – https://sailorfantalk.com/2023/10/03/preview-kitchee-v-sailors-perhaps-no-better-time-to-play-kitchee/ Not much has changed since 2 mths ago. He has scored 2 more goals, and his overall record does seem decent now. 5 goals in 11 matches is a decent ratio. However, I think quite crucially, he still struggles to see gametime because of the availability of the other foreign players, who are deemed to be better than him. 11 appearances in a year is not great. Why I suspect we will see him tomorrow is because of the comments of his coach

And then there were 2. 2 more games for our beloved Sailors – 1 tomorrow against Hougang United, and 1 next week against Kitchee. 2 sides vying for the only silverware available to them after a long, hard season. Hougang fans always chant proudly “Silverware, we don’t care“, while us Sailors fans sing about “taking every trophy, first the League and then the Cups“. Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is now very much time to take the Cup. But we will have to navigate the challenge of a Hougang United team who have nothing to lose in this final, and everything to play for. Let’s dive right into the preview. Silverware, We Don’t Care! First, the Hougang fans really should care, according to some basic research done online. Silverware ought to he handled carefully so that it will last for decades. Well the only thing that lasted for decades for them was their trophy drought. Until last year’s amazing win over Tampines Rovers of course. Back to the serious business. Why they should care is not only because the Singapore Cup is a prestigious trophy. Winning the Cup also comes along with it the carrot of continental qualification. After the changes announced by AFC earlier this year, Singapore has been left with only 2 AFC qualification slots, and both of them are for the 2nd-tier competition, the ACL2. (Just for added context, the ACL2 is still a pretty high-level tournament, because it will still feature good teams from the top leagues, such as the K League and the J League. Just see for yourself below) Ok now that you’ve seen the slots, you will realise that Hougang (and Tampines) will be very invested in the result of this game when it comes to their AFC chances. If Hougang win the Cup, they will get that second indirect slot and go into the playoffs of the ACL2. If they lose the Cup, then the 2nd slot will go to the next highest-placed team in the league after LCS, which is Tampines Rovers. (Yellow Knights if you’re reading this, it may pain you, but it might help your team if you cheer for us instead tomorrow, heh.) After a disaster of a season which saw their head coach re-deployed due to poor results, and multiple injury woes, Hougang will go all out to try and salvage something from it. Winning an SG Cup will be the most glorious salvage job ever. As for us, the motivation to win the Cup will hopefully be strong because a club like Sailors needs to win silverware every year. You can’t get away with spending so much money and building all these facilities, to lose to another local club. I hope our boys will be pumped up for this one. Injury Woes To make matters slightly easier for us, Hougang’s injury list is very unfortunate. Gabriel Quak and Hazzuwan Halim join the team in the treatment room, which is already a temporary home for Shahdan Sulaiman and Kiki Krajcek. Even with a full team, we still have the advantage on paper, but this should tilt the balance firmly towards us. We still have to worry about 2 of their chief attacking options though. Deadly Djordje If you think this headline is familiar, that’s because I warned us about him before the last time we played Hougang. And yes, he scored. He is in a very rich vein of scoring form, scoring 9 goals in the last 8 games for Hougang. He is also joint-top scorer of the Singapore Cup, along with Richi, Diego, Shawal and Balestier’s Shuhei Hoshino (all on 5 goals). Djordje is deadly because of his pace, finishing instincts, and ability to finish on either foot. You will remember him scampering onto a through ball from Nazrul Nazari when we met Hougang in the group stage. This is something that we can expect to see more of tonight. Hougang are quite adept at using the fullbacks to put long balls into the channels for Maksimovic to chase. Which brings us to… Nazrul Nazari Ever since the Hougang injury list started growing in the last few weeks and months, Nazrul Nazari has started growing in stature too. Not his height – he still remains a pocket-sized footballer. On the field though, he has started to take on more creative responsibilities in the absence of his key teammates like Kiki and Shahdan. In 21 games in the league this season, he has picked up just 1 assist. However, in the past few weeks, he has managed 3 assists in the Singapore Cup, and 1 more in the AFC Cup. If we look at Hougang’s assists and goals chart in the Singapore Cup, it is pretty clear the the burden of creating has fallen on his shoulders. If we stop Nazrul and Djordje, we can feel a lot better about our chances of winning the game. Magic Max And now the attention shifts back to one of our own. Our Player of the Year Maxime Lestienne is going through a bit of a barren streak in front of goal. In our last article, I said this – Maxime last scored in October, against Kitchee from the penalty spot. Since then, he has played in 7 games and not scored a goal – definitely his longest streak without scoring this season. That is almost unbelievable, considering how easily he has put the ball in the back of the net this season. 25 goals in 24 league games is amazing stuff, even if you don’t look at his assists tally. Thankfully for us, even though he hasn’t scored, his assists haven’t stopped. He has notched 5 assists and is quite clearly the chief playmaker for our Sailors. By his own admission, he said that he should have got a few goals against Tampines in the last game – so I predict Max will finally find the scoresheet tonight to break his little cold streak in

Having crashed out of the AFC Champions League in midweek, tonight’s clash against old foes Tampines Rovers allows our Sailors a quick chance at redemption. Will fatigue play a part in this game? Will the absence of Yasir Hanapi be a key one? Let’s dive into some of my thoughts about the game. Quick Thoughts on Bangkok Loss Sorry for not getting a proper post-match thoughts article out for our loss against Bangkok Utd. I am still on holiday with the wife, and if I spend too much time doing SailorFanTalk stuff, I suspect she won’t be best pleased haha. Sorry also that this extended trip means that I will not be able to do a post-match interview at the stadium. It sucks to break the streak – we’ve done one for every game this season, but I guess it ends tonight. (Joseph is also busy with a wedding – not too late for some last minute cold feet from the bride or groom eh? Jk jk) The team came in for some criticism midweek. Generally, there was a feeling that our boys should have set out to attack a little bit more, especially as a win was realistically the only way we could qualify for the group stage (finishing 2nd is not a guarantee that we would be one of the best 2nd-placed teams). There was also plenty of criticism for Anu – for not jumping in the wall. My feelings on this are a little mixed. When goals get conceded, people often tend to get a little black-and-white or a little simplistic in their analysis of the goal. In this case, perhaps it really is black-and-white, so let me say it loud and clear – Anu should have jumped. On this point, I agree with the many people online who said that he should have jumped. If he had a time machine, he’d get back in time and he’d jump. Was there a miscommunication with the keeper? Was it fear that the ball would hit him? Misjudgment of the ball? I guess we will never know. What I do know is that regardless of who made the error and the magnitude of the error, I do not believe it warrants online harrassment or over-reaction. I saw shameful behaviour from so-called “fans”, who tagged Anu in Instagram, and told him he should retire, or that the goal was his fault. Hey, if you were a true fan, maybe don’t rub it in? And certainly don’t make it personal. You can point out the error, but also show some compassion, love, and some support for the players you are supposed to support. Even if you think there are better players than him that the club should sign, that can’t change till next season – so get behind our boys please. Also, and this is the more important point. We lost by a goal to Bangkok Utd, and we all know that margins at the top level are fine. But if you want to go down the route of assigning blame, how about we blame Zharfan also for not at least diving to get the ball? How about we blame Shawal Anuar for not just not jumping, but ducking as well? The ball could well have gone right above Shawal’s head – but it went over Anu’s. This is an outcome-based criticism of Anu when Shawal did the same or even worse. How about we blame Maxime for wasting 1 or 2 chances to put better balls into the box when we got the rare counter-attack? How about we blame Shawal for missing the 1v1? How about we blame Rui Pires for a few misplaced passes in midfield? Does he get insulated from criticism more because mistakes in his role seldom directly lead to conceded goals? Where I am going with this is simply that in supporting a team, you should not be singling out players for abuse. It’s a team game after all. You can criticise them, but let’s be fair and balanced in our criticism, and even then, let’s be a little kinder with the actual words we use. Back to analysis of the game – our Sailors will be raring to go to show that despite the loss, they are still the top local side, and what better way to do that than to do it against our old rivals on their home patch? Speaking of home patch… Pitch Imperfect The first leg of the semi-final will be held at Our Tampines Hub, which was used by SAF for a passing-out parade just yesterday. Hundreds of people marched around the hallowed grounds of Tampines Rovers, potentially causing damage to it. This is not without precedent – earlier on in the year, a Tampines game was postponed due to poor pitch conditions after a football tournament was held there. Could there possibly be a postponement? While I hope not, I think the condition of the pitch could still adversely affect Tampines. As we’ve seen this season, Tampines likes playing a controlled game revolving around numerous short passes in the backline. With a pitch that might have some slight tears lying around, it may be good for the Sailors because they are capable of playing some much more direct football than Tampines, who rely on their quantity of passes. In fact, this was their downfall against us because some sloppy passing led to Maxime capitalising to score a wonderful chip. Oh, and that reminds me – who gave the ball away? Yasir Hanapi He is suspended after his reckless foul led to a red card against Geylang in a group stage match. That is definitely good news cos he’s the captain. His industry in the middle of the pitch is an example for all, and sets the tone sometimes for some very ferocious intense Tampines pressing. Besides that, let me hit you with a quick stat attack on why he is so influential for the team – However, it

If it feels like a really long time since the Sailors last played, that’s because it has been 2 weeks since our Sailors were last in action, when they deservedly lost 3-0 to Jeonbuk in the Jeonju World Cup Stadium. I’ve summed up my thoughts in the post-match thoughts article, so if you haven’t read it yet, please go take a look. So do we have a better shot at picking up a point or even all three? Let’s jump straight into the preview then! Smaller Astroturf Pitch In the official club interview, Super had this to say – “It’s going to be a different game here because it is hotter here than in Korea, the field is smaller and we are playing on an artificial surface. Jeonbuk play really nice football, but we are going to make it tough for them,” So that got me checking – what exactly is the size difference? Turns out, actually it’s quite substantial. (stats taken from transfermarkt.com) Smaller Pitch Jalan Besar Stadium – 98m x 64m Jeonju World Cup Stadium – 105m x 68m In the post-match article, I talked about how Jeonbuk’s wingers exploited our defence on the wings, and I just wonder, now that the pitch is significantly smaller, whether we will be able to contain them a little better. Don’t look down on what may seem like a measly 4m difference. Especially when we are playing 5 at the back, there will be less space for each defender to cover width-wise. Length-wise, it also allows us to get from back to front that little bit quicker, and that may suit us on the counter-attack. Artificial Pitch It is no secret that foreign teams that come here absolutely hate playing on our astroturf. The ball bounces different, the surface is hard for the players, and it takes a while for teams to get used to it. Some of the greatest nights in Home United’s AFC Cup history were achieved under the lights on the bouncy astroturf pitch at Jalan Besar Stadium. If you cast your mind back a couple of months, you will remember that a technically proficient team like Bangkok United also took more than a half to get to grips with the astroturf surface. Am I clutching at straws? Maybe a bit – we still did ultimately lose to Bangkok United, and Singapore’s national team has also lost games before at Jalan Besar despite this supposed pitch advantage. But hey, something is better than nothing. Jeonbuk’s FA Cup Final Defeat Jeonbuk come into this game having led 1-0 and 2-1 against bitter rivals Pohang Steelers in the Korean FA Cup Final. However, 3 goals in the span of 17 minutes ensured that they will not finish with any domestic silverware this season. How will that affect them coming into tonight’s game? It’s anyone’s guess, really. They might be angry and want to bounce back immediately, or they might still be hurting and turn in a listless performance. Or it might be something in the middle – this is not a computer game after all where morale is measured in terms of quantifiable numbers. Let’s try to make an educated guess by looking at their form this season after suffering a loss. Considering Jeonbuk on paper should have easily been the top 2 or 3 teams in Korea this season, it is quite surprising to see that on five separate occasions, they followed up a loss with a draw/loss. I have highlighted those occasions where they did not bounce back with a win by bolding those lines. 25 Feb 2023 – lost to Ulsan, drew with Suwon Bluewings 19 Mar 2023 – Lost to Daegu, lost to Pohang Steelers 15 April 2023 – Lost to Suwon 26 April 2023 – Lost to Daejeon Hana Citizen, lost to Gangwon, draw with Seoul 29 May 2023 – Lost to Pohang Steelers 24 June 2023 – Lost to Gwangju 21 July 2023 – Lost to Pohang Steelers 19 Aug 2023 – Lost to Ulsan, draw with Daejeon Hana Citizen, draw with Jeju United, lost to Gangwon 30 Sep 2023 – Lost to Daegu, lost to Bangkok Utd Does this suggest that they do not have mental strength and cannot bounce back? No I don’t think so. I just checked to find out if there was a trend, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything noteworthy there. I already did the work though, so I thought I’d just share! Rest Time What may be more crucial though, is the rest time that the Sailors have had compared to their Korean counterparts. Since the last time we faced Jeonbuk, they have played 3 matches in 7 days, culminating in that cup final loss to Pohang Steelers. While there has been some rotation, key midfielder Paik Seung Ho has started all 3 games, and the hope of course is that fatigue will help to take some of the sharpness off the Jeonbuk players. While following the FA Cup final on the weekend, I was secretly hoping it would drag on to extra time, and then to penalties, to prolong the game, and add some unwanted minutes into those tired legs, rendering them a weaker prospect to deal with. The obvious counter to this point is simply that Jeonbuk rested 4 key first-team players against us and still came away with a handsome victory last time they faced us – so perhaps their strength in depth will make this less of an issue for them. Must-Win Game I don’t think much more needs to be said once you look at the table. Should Jeonbuk beat us, they’ll go up to 9 points, and we’ll be stuck on 3. Assuming Bangkok United beats Kitchee, then Bangkok will be on 12 pts, Jeonbuk on 9, and even if we win our last two fixtures, Jeonbuk just needs 1 more point from their games against Bangkok United and Kitchee to ensure we do not finish in 2nd. A draw

I am writing to you from Korea. LCS has put us up in a nice cosy hotel right in the heart of Jeonju, where tomorrow’s action will take place. I will admit first that this preview may not be as useful to you as some of the other preview articles put out in the past. The reason for this is that I was not able to ask any of the Korean football experts to comment on their team in a meaningful way. I don’t think anyone is under any illusions about the magnitude of the task that faces our Sailors tomorrow. There is a huge gulf between the standard in the K-League and that of the SPL. However, in the wise words of Singaporean singer Linying – “we did it before, and we’ll do it again”. We faced K-League side Daegu twice last year and came away with 3 points, impressively beating them 3-0, before losing narrowly in the torrential rain 2-1. Could we do it again? Let’s dive into the preview. The Mad Green Boys If the following paragraphs about the fans sounds very complimentary, please forgive me for being nice to our very hospitable hosts. It’s 1am here in Korea and they have taken us out and about for the past 6h, first to a charcoal-grilled chicken place, and then to a seafood place. Copious amounts of alcohol were also consumed at each place, making the writing of this article a little harder – but write it I must, so let me tell you why this is relevant. The results achieved against Daegu were fantastic, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that out of the 6 fixtures in this group, this is by far the hardest. Supporters can sometimes be the 12th man, and numerous studies have shown that referees tend to give better decisions to home teams due to the pressure and atmosphere created by the crowd. The biggest difference between beating Daegu last year and attempting to beat Jeonbuk this year is an actual home advantage enjoyed by Jeonbuk. This is incontrast to last year’s centralised tournament held in Buriram. Part of the advantage stems from the Mad Green Boys, who are permanently given the no. 12 in the squad, underlining their importance to the team. I watched on TV their game against Daegu – away from home, and they were LOUD. It is no wonder that they were voted by their fellow fans as the most intimidating set of supporters in the K-League in 2016. There’s something quite intimidating about a large bunch of people in green jumping up and down with wild abandon, and having witnessed first-hand their enthusiasm and vigour throughout this evening’s festivities, I can say for certain that the Crew is gonna be outshouted for sure tomorrow. While the numbers may not be as impressive as for weekend games, I expect a healthy number to still turn up and create a formidable wall of green. It will be intimidating. Jeonbuk’s Struggles This Season Tipped by many to be the winner, and automatically assumed by most to challenge, Jeonbuk have been disappointingly off the pace. Their attack in particular, seems to have suffered following the departure of former Swansea forward Modou Barrow. He notched 13 goals and 8 assists for Jeonbuk in his final season, from a mere 28 games. That is not easy to replace. His style of play also helped to create chances and relieve the pressure for his team because his supreme pace meant that teams dared not press as high up. You add to that the mid-season departure of Cho Gue-sung to the Danish league, and then it becomes even more telling why the attack has sputtered this season. If the name rings a bell, Cho was the Korean striker who scored 2 goals against Ghana at the World Cup in 2022, announcing himself to the world. Of course, they still have Gustavo, and other attacking threats. However, their scoring numbers fill me with 1% of hope that perhaps we can do well to shut them out. You be the judge – Remember that Cho Gue-Sung is no longer there, and Gustavo is not a striker who can create his own chances upfront too. However, given adequate service in the box, he is absolutely deadly, so we have to keep a close eye on him. It is fair to say that we are lucky they are not the force they were last year, or in the years prior, where they made mincemeat of Tampines Rovers. How will the Sailors line up? I think the squad pretty much picks itself. For me, the only doubt would be whether Shawal Anuar features after his superb cameo at the weekend. If you go with 5 at the back, that necessarily means you need 2 central midfielders and those will be Rui Pires and Anu. That leaves 3 spaces up top and it will not be surprising for LCS fans to see Diego Lopes, Lestienne and Zivkovic picked as the starters. Having watched Jeonbuk play, they like to press very high onto their opponents. Led by Boateng in the middle, they tend to want to snap into challenges in or around the penalty area. This of course leads to turnovers – something that we need to watch out for. However, it also gives us an escape route. Should we be able to evade the press somewhat, we can try to go long, and hope that there is enough space behind the backline for our forwards to deal with. This is where perhaps keeping Shawal on the bench may help. He very seldom lasts the whole game anyway, so it’s good to keep him in reserve, and then release the secret weapon against tiring legs in the second half. One thing I noticed while watching Jeonbuk this season is that they seem to have an inability to clear their lines properly when they defend their goal . I think

It’s been a while since we last saw our Sailors in action. More than 2 weeks ago, we managed to come away with a win in Hong Kong that reinvigorated our slim hopes of making it to the latter rounds of the AFC Champions League. While us supporters have had a chance to really kick back, relax, and bask in the warm glow of the away win, the players have not had such a luxury. Do we rotate and give us the best chance in Korea, or do we try our best to effectively sew up qualification in the Singapore Cup so the last game takes on less significance? 4 Games in 17 Days Of the 25 Lions called up to play the two matches against Guam, 10 were from the Sailors, and 9 featured. The only player who did not see any gametime was Zharfan. This has been a hectic time for these players. Let’s take a look at their schedule since the Kitchee game. 4 October – Kitchee v Sailors 12 October – Singapore v Guam 17 October – Guam v Singapore 21 October – Sailors v Tanjong Pagar Should our national team players feature again, it might be a case of 4 games in 17 days, along with 4 flights as well. That is a tiring schedule, especially taking into account he 13h journeys by air to and from Guam. The likes of Anu, Lionel, CvH, Mamat, Hariss, and Shawal saw significant gametime, and I do wonder if there is some temptation to give a rest to a few of them. However, given the injury and unavailability issues faced by the Sailors, it may not be feasible to rest all of them. One of the key figures that might dictate if people like Anu and Lionel may play is Bailey Wright. He has been out since early-September when he picked up an injury in a closed-door friendly against Albirex. Given that Anu, Lionel, and Hariss played many minutes against Guam and Kitchee, and Bailey hasn’t played at all, it would be ideal to let Bailey play – if he is fit. Is Bailey Fit? Plus Other Injury News Bailey Wright It’s really tough to say. Unlike Singapore’s favourite league, the English Premier League, injury news is very hard to come by as local clubs are often tight-lipped about player injuries and how serious they are. We are thus left to guess based on club training videos – a skill picked up through years of playing Fantasy Football (FF). For those unacquainted, FF is an online game where people pick players from various Premier League teams and sort them into a lineup of 11 players, and these said players then pick up virtual points based on their real-life performances in matches. FF is also a game taken way too seriously by people like myself, which thus results in crazy, irrational behaviour, such as looking for the littlest clues in training videos as to whether a player we picked is injured and will feature at the weekend. So, if you look at the training video below, scroll to around 2:30 and watch on for 10 seconds – you will see that Bailey Wright has resumed pitch training, and crucially, resumed pitch training in a group. However, of course, it must be said that that was a rondo/monkey training drill, which may not involve as much rigour as other drills which were not really shown. Nothing in the video shows Bailey doing anything that would really extend him as well, so it is hard to say if he will feature tomorrow. I guess we’ll see. If you don’t see Bailey, it’s cos his back is turned to the camera. Haha I am a psycho. Same applies for Pedro Henrique. While he cannot play tomorrow because he is not registered in our Singapore Cup squad, Coach Rankovic may be tempted to push one or two of Lionel/Anu/Hariss for the full 90 if he felt that Pedro Henrique was fit and ready to start against Jeonbuk on Wednesday. Kodai Tanaka This one’s not entirely relevant for tomorrow’s game but I just thought I’d comment on it. Kodai was injured on 9 March against Albirex. However, it was not until around the end of the month before he had his surgery. This can be seen from his post on 1 April, where he said he had his surgery two days prior. This is normal for ACL injuries – you cannot operate immediately. According to Dr. Andy Williams, an ACL reconstruction expert, you need to let the swelling go down and for the knee to go “quiet”, if not you risk adding to the trauma and in the long term, you may stiffen up the knee even more. So from 1 April till now, that’s about 6.5 months. You have seen from Kodai’s instagram posts that he has resumed training for quite a while already. While at first it was just solitary gym work, he has returned to the pitch to do solo training, and now he’s back in group training. As to the extent of how intense his training is, we can only guess from his posts and the training video above – but 6-9 mths is the usual timeframe. If you scroll to 4:31 – you will see that in a small-sided game, he comes sliding in to intercept a pass. To me, even though I am not an expert, I think this is a heartening sign. We definitely won’t see him against Tanjong Pagar, but maybe he’ll make it for the Jeonbuk game as a substitute? Let’s see if he travels with the team. It doesn’t seem like there’s any other injury news, so if Ranko is trying to more or less secure qualification tomorrow, this is perhaps a good chance to do it. Going for a Win to Secure Qualification A win will almost certainly put us into the semifinals. It is not mathematically confirmed of course, but let