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Chances spurned in scrappy draw at Woodlands
Ko Po Hui
info@sleague.com
“It was a scrappy game!”
Those were the words of A. Shasi Kumar after he watched his Woodlands Wellington side play out a goalless draw with Beijing Guoan Talent at Woodlands Stadium on Thursday evening.
Woodlands had returned from a lengthy 17-day break, but the encounter with their newest neighbours from Yishun proved to be largely uneventful.
The game had promised much more for the Rams after just six minutes, when ace marksman Abdelhadi Laakkad came close to scoring his second goal of the season.
The Moroccan thought he had his name on the scoresheet when he latched on to a pass from Sazali Salleh on the left flank and fired a shot that seemed bound for goal, only for a Beijing defender to cut the ball out in the nick of time.
Having missed out on the action for more than a year due to injury, it wasn’t hard to see that the 2006 Player of the Year was eager to make up for lost time.
In the space of two minutes, Laakkad had two headers that went off target, much to the agony of the home supporters, returning to the newly-refurbished Woodlands Stadium for the first time of the season.
First, he diverted a ball from Sazali over the crossbar on 23 minutes, before a centre from fellow forward Guntur Djafril led to him diverting the ball past the upright.
It took the Beijing players 31 minutes to muster their first notable chance of the night.
A split-pass from Zhang Ye outside the box caused much mayhem in the heart of the Woodlands defence, but midfielder Liu Teng’s innocent-looking tap near the six-yard box meant there was no goal in the end.
Five minutes before half-time, winger Meng Yang’s powerful low driver went straight to Rams goalkeeper Hafez Mawasi, who did well to go to ground quickly. That was arguably the only shot on target from the Chinese side before referee W. Ravisanthiran blew the whistle for the interval.
The play did not improve much in the second half, as the game continued to be dominated by poor link-up play between defence and attack from both sides.
That said, Beijing’s attacking play did show signs of improvement, and they had a great chance to break the deadlock not long after the hour mark had passed.
62 minutes had elapsed when a threatening-looking free kick by striker Li Tixiang forced a desperate clearance from the Woodlands defenders.
A minute later, the ever-menacing Meng sent a defence-splitting pass from his own half that saw a surging Zhao Yang latch on perfectly before being allegedly tackled by Woodlands centreback Kazuki Yoshino from behind in the box.
Referee Ravisanthiran, however, ignored an appeal by the guests for a penalty kick, and they had to go back to the drawing board in search of a goal.
Mohd Noor Ali decided to take the initiative on 75 minutes, when he slipped past his marker to unleash a shot that went wide of the goal. That chance came after Laakkad had shielded the ball well from an Anaz Hadee long throw from the right.
With no sign of improvement in his team’s attack, coach Shasi decided to make a change as Asraf Abdul Rashid came on.
The winger repaid the faith shown in him by quickly creating another two clear-cut chances, but while they sent shivers down the visitors’ spines, there was still to be no goal.
The first came on 81 minutes, when the ex-SAFFC man floated in a dangerous-looking free kick from right, but there was no man in a yellow shirt to pick up the ball and score.
The nippy Asraf then weaved his magic along the left wing once more to deliver a cross five minutes from time, which Beijing custodian Su Boyang did very well to smother.
As the minutes ticked away, the Chinese counted themselves unlucky not to capitalise on two chances in the dying minutes, while another curler from Asraf off a free kick went wide in stoppage time.
The match thus ended with the northern neighbours sharing the spoils equally, an outcome Beijing coach Zheng Xiaotian seemed satisfied with.
“I think my players played very well tonight,” he said after the match.
“Like I mentioned before, the standard and level of competition provided by the S.League will be good for the development of my players.
“It’s common for a young team like my side to experience some physical encounters during the match. This is part and parcel of their learning process.”
The Talents have now failed to score after two matches, making them the only side in the S.League yet to break their goalscoring duck.
Zheng nonetheless remained positive, revealing that the feeder squad are currently in talks with their parent club in China regarding plans to rope in reinforcements in their striking department.
He however declined to reveal when these reinforcements are expected to arrive.
Shasi meanwhile admitted that his team had faced difficulties breaking down their opponents.
“The Beijing team are well-organised; you can see that once they lost the ball, they get back to shape (quickly),” said the former Gombak United assistant coach.
“But it was something we expected anyway.
“We did not get to play what we wanted to play, as we like to play up from the back.
“And it’s not a day for pretty football as the field was like cement, but it was a fair result. I cannot fault the performance of the team, as they have been fantastic.” |
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