Tam Cheong Yan
info@sleague.com
Throughout the last week or so, this writer had a thought about catching Black Swan at the movies, just to find out what the whole fuss is with Natalie Portman winning an Oscar. But then, of course, finding time to go to the pictures proves rather difficult with football, real life and a couple of other, shall we say, personal engagements taking up so much time.
Anyway, before Natalie Portman, there was Winona Ryder, whose own collection of landmark works includes the surprise box-office flop Reality Bites. There’s something about that film title that rings true for a number of teams this week, after the setbacks and disappointments they had faced on the pitch.
Since we’re on the topic of swans, the seemingly most obvious place to start would be at Jurong East, where Albirex Niigata (Singapore) saw their perfect record shattered by a 0-2 loss to Tampines Rovers. White Swans coach Koichi Sugiyama said before the game that this was about finding out whether they were as good as they thought they were, and that’s why they spent so much effort preparing to cross swords with the easterners.
So what was the verdict at the end? Well, Albirex are pretty good, but not quite good enough to break down a resolute Tampines backline, with Park Yo Seb and Hassan Sunny particularly active. At the other end, closing down the colossal Aleksandar Duric and the mercurial Ahmad Latiff Khamarudin proved that bit too difficult. Take away their two goals, though, and we have an absolutely confident performance by the Japanese that probably deserved something.
The same cannot be said of Hougang United. Already, three games into their campaign, memories of their sensational pre-season form are fading fast as they shipped another five goals, this time against Home United. What’s worse, they could not put themselves on the scoresheet even when a penalty was awarded in their favour, Carlos Delgado fluffing his lines from the spot just before the interval.
Of course, there are those who argue that Ratna Suffian’s first-half dismissal made things much easier for the Protectors, and that things might have been different had Mamadou Diallo and Diego Gama de Oliveira not been out injured. But those points are moot, and the league table makes for ominous reading – Hougang are third from bottom at time of writing, conceding even more goals than last-placed Tanjong Pagar United.
Speaking of whom, Tanjong Pagar will be very relieved to have picked up a precious point following their goalless draw with Woodlands Wellington. The football on offer for this televised game was once again not the best, but the lack of finesse was compensated by a generous serving of effort.
In fact, it can be said the attackers tried a little too hard – yes, Leonardo, that means you. The big Brazilian was definitely a leading culprit with his collection of high blasts and dodgy headers, although Jalal’s entry for miss of the season was widely acknowledged as the most shocking. Rams coach R. Balasubramaniam insists his players can only improve; let’s see how they measure up in the coming week against a well-rested SAFFC side eager to get going again.
There were a number of heated contests in the league this week, and Gombak United’s bruising 1-0 win over Etoile FC was certainly among them. Twelve bookings, one man sent off, a late Ruhaizad Ismail goal, and a few verbal barbs supposedly traded between the two coaches – that is quite a good serving of chaotic drama if you ask anyone who was at Jurong West.
Apparently that does not compare with the five-goal thriller served up by the Courts Young Lions and Geylang United, where two players were shown the red card during the game, a member of the home side’s coaching panel (name not published to protect, well, whatever there is to protect) was sent to the stands, and another player copped a red after the now-customary post-match handshake. Oh, and teenage talent Shahfiq Ghani caught the legendary Eric Cantona’s eye after setting up one goal and scoring the other two for the Young Lions.
Cantona and Pele, of course, were special guests at the match as part of the New York Cosmos tour, and they must have attracted plenty of attention in the VIP box at Jalan Besar. Local and international press folks have been fawning over them from morning till night too.
It’s a bit surreal, then, to see an official match attendance of only about 2,700 – 200 more than the opening match of the season that had no global football superstars as guests-of-honour. Maybe Singaporeans have been so used to luminaries dropping by that we have become blasé about such affairs. Or maybe they just prefer watching The Lion King, which premiered on the same day here in Singapore. (Don’t rush for tickets, by the way – that show runs till 31 May.)
Whatever it was, Robin Chitrakar must have been relieved to see his boys score at last, after they were held to a 0-0 draw by Balestier Khalsa earlier in the week. In fact, it might be more correct to say they had held the Tigers to a draw, seeing how Chitrakar had sacrificed two of his attacking pieces once Shakir Hamzah was sent off for two bookings in the first half.
And rounding off the review of the week’s action, we have the AFC Cup, which saw Tampines ease their way back into the continent with a 3-1 victory over, um, Victory Sports Club of the Maldives. Not quite the auspicious name the Maldivians had hoped it to be, it seems.
For the most part, it was a straightforward game for Steven Tan’s boys, with Benoit Croissant opening the scoring early in the first half before being joined on the scoresheet by Duric and substitute Jamil Ali. The only sore point was conceding a late goal that ruined the Stags’ streak of clean sheets in the island nation, but you can’t always have everything, can you?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of FAS and the S.League
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