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Tenacious Tigers make Etoile scrap
Ko Po Hui
info@sleague.com
There may have been an S.League fixture at Jalan Besar Stadium on Good Friday, but it seemed as if everyone was clueless about it.
A small crowd of 1,845 – the second smallest turnout on a Friday night league fixture so far this season – turned out to see Etoile FC face Balestier Khalsa. And after seeing the French team, designated hosts of this televised tie, serve up a scrappy performance, questions would be asked of the ten dollars each fan paid to watch this match in the flesh.
“I think it worth the value,” declared Etoile’s chairman and CEO Johan Gouttefangeas.
“Half of the French community was away for holiday because this is a long weekend. Usually no one comes to live games because they prefer to stay at home and watch on TV, so to me 1,800 fans is a very good attendance.”
Things almost got off to a good start for the French debutants, who came into this match seven points behind league leaders Tampines Rovers after drawing their last three matches.
Skipper Matthias Verschave’s attempt inside the six-yard box rattled the crossbar in the second minute, after ace playmaker Flavien Michelini surged his way past his marker on the right and centred the ball from an acute angle to the former Swansea City player.
If that was meant as a prelude to better things to come from the Stars, the crowd were to be disappointed.
Being not as technically advanced as their counterparts, Balestier did the realistic thing and relied on their strengths, playing defensively deep in their half to deny their opponents any chance of inflicting damage on them.
It was a tactic that worked wonders for Nasaruddin Jalil’s boys, whose defence was weakened by the absence of Paul Cunningham, one half of their “Twin Towers” partnership, due to injury.
With Cunningham not risked in view of their clash with Woodlands Wellington just three days later, Sofiyan Abdul Hamid came in for the New Zealander and proved to be a competent partner for Daniel Hammond.
And the Tigers, who looked good for a point, drew praise from Nasaruddin afterwards.
“I think we played to our strength and we managed to hold them well, and we hoped we could catch them on the break.”
Hold Etoile well the Toa Payoh-based club did indeed, as for large parts of the game they found themselves under pressure from a team that, as Gouttefangeas had predicted, would find the artificial turf of Jalan Besar a ground that would go well with their style of play.
However, dominating possession throughout the match did not translate to a rush of goals, as Etoile failed to utilise the hatful of chances they had created for themselves, with gangling striker Frederic Mendy accounting for the bulk of those misses.
Eleven minutes into the game, the former Evreux forward submitted his first entry for “Miss of the Season”. Julien Deletraz got a nice move going from the middle as he found the menacing Michelini on the right flank, who played the ball low inwards, but with only Tigers custodian Joey Sim to beat, Mendy spun a soft tap-in wide from six yards.
Easily the target of a series of high crosses floated in from all directions, the 1.9m-tall Mendy had a torrid time in front of goal, as eight minutes later he saw his free header miss the mark as well.
On 59 minutes, it looked as if Mendy was going to break the hex when he surged clear of the entire Tigers backline to make his way into the penalty area, but a timely tackle from the backtracking Anantha Rajan foiled his attempt in the nick of time.
The sight of Anantha rushing back was a great relief to Sim, who had his own heroic moment on 63 minutes when he flew to his left and punched away a wicked curler from Michelini, topping off a night where he did not put a foot wrong at all.
Much of the credit for the Tigers’ tough-as-nails display was also due to the commanding presence of captain Hammond, who led his team by example with some gallant defending that injected much calm into his team’s defence.
Six yellow cards might have suggested that Balestier had played dirty, but they did what was required of them, and Rivaldo Costa, Vitor Borges and even teenage substitute Syafiq Zainal gave the Etoile defence a few scares too.
Singapore Sports School graduate Syafiq was particularly eye-catching after he came on for Nurhilmi Jasni on 72 minutes, going on a solo run from left to right with surprising momentum that left six Etoile players in a daze.
Only the lack of nearby support prevented him from fashioning an end-product out of that run, but he did his bit to enhance Balestier’s reputation and frustrate his opponents.
The Frenchmen in comparison were finding it difficult to live up to their early hype, and with 80 minutes gone, their tepid display looked set to yield them a fourth consecutive draw.
But a slip in concentration on 81 minutes that resulted in a misguided pass by midfielder Ishak Zainol threw the Balestier defence into disarray, and Mendy, grateful to be handed a chance to redeem himself, ensured he made this effort count when he leaped past the Balestier backline to slot home the winner.
Despite seeing his team’s good work undone by a single lapse, Nasaruddin was heartened by his boys’ effort and tactical discipline.
“Everyone played to their strength, and besides, Etoile is a technically better team than us,” he acknowledged.
“Playing against the foreign teams in this league, I think we have to be more disciplined, and I think my team did well in this game. It was the same against Albirex (Niigata (Singapore)) and Beijing (Guoan Talent), we know they are better than us in some ways, but we were more disciplined and found a way to beat them.
“Etoile were everywhere on the pitch, but we were able to predict how they will move, and I thought my players managed to tell them to play the way we want them to. I think they did not play their normal game, and the goal they scored was not the usual kind of goal they normally score.
“It was a miscue from us, the clearance of the ball was not very clean, and that caught everybody off-guard. But so far the boys have shown good tactical discipline, and even though we lost, the boys did well.”
Etoile coach Patrick Vallee was meanwhile relieved to win, after seeing his team waste more than a dozen chances.
“It was difficult to score when only one team was playing,” complained Vallee at the post-match press conference, clearly not wishing to deal with the misses.
Pressed further to clarify his remarks, Vallee asked the media present if they were at the same game he was at, a sentiment shared by Gouttefangeas, who was seated by his side.
“It was Etoile who was playing, we had one chance and we scored,” said Gouttefangeas.
“If we were up by two goals in the first ten minutes, it would have been a different game,” added Vallee.
“Balestier did a good job playing their tactics against us, but I did not see a match. They came for a draw, I don’t do that, I only want to win.
“Statically, it may not looked good with just one goal from many chances, but I like bad statistics and a 1-0 win more than good statistics but a 3-3 draw.”
Gouttefangeas then aired his grouses about Balestier’s defending, singling out their tackling as a major complaint.
“I don’t call that physical challenging, I call it non-football,” he said.
“Those challenges are dangerous, we are getting it from every team, and I hope it is going to stop. I don’t want my players limping out at the end of each game and needing to get treatment.
“There was one team trying to play out there, and the other team, from the first minute, was trying to waste everybody’s time. I don’t understand, this is not the way the game should be.”
Vallee, however, admitted that he and his charges will have to be prepared for whatever their opponents do.
“This is tactical, it is not for me to be happy or not happy about it,” he said.
The last word on Balestier’s tactics, in the end, went to their own coach.
“Whatever they say we did, we controlled how they played and did not let them play their usual football,” said Nasaruddin.
“If they saw it and played differently and beat us, good, it means we are outplayed. If their players know how to do this, they can go to the World Cup!” |
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