24 March 2009
THEY came into the S-League as an unknown quantity, but after five matches, Brunei club DPMM have made fans sit up and take notice.
Tonight, they entertain Sengkang Punggol and a win will see DPMM go to the top of the Great Eastern-Yeo’s S-League 2009 standings, one point ahead of Gombak and two in front of SAFFC, albeit having played a game more.
It is one of the reasons why the club expect one of the biggest turnouts in the history of a regular season game in the S-League.
Backed by huge support, DPMM have won both their home games and yesterday, team manager Muhd Waslimin Abd Momin said: “Our crowd’s have risen from 5,000 to 7,000. We are expecting 10,000 against Sengkang and in the future we hope to be reaching crowds of 15,000.
“We always try to play good football and if the spectators like what they see, they will come back.”
Along with current league leaders Gombak and defending champions SAFFC, DPMM, coached by Vjeran Simunic, are one of only three teams unbeaten this season.
While it is still early days, the team’s unbeaten run threatens to make the critics who wrote them off eat their words.
DPMM have been competitive in every game and one of their strengths has been the ability to maintain their form throughout the 90 minutes.
They were down 1-0 Against the Young Lions in their opening match, but snatched a deserved equaliser in the 90th min.
They also grabbed a late winner against the Super Reds after being a goal down.
Sengkang are in the bottom three and will need to pull out all the stops to get a result in Brunei.
So far, Waslimin has been impressed by the quality of the S-League and he feels the club’s foreign signings have added quality to the team. Korean Oh Ddog Yi, top scorer for the Super Reds last season, has been in fine form and scored the winner against Balestier Khalsa in their last match.
“In the S-League we have a difficult challenge ahead of us,” Waslimin said.
“Unlike the Malaysian Super League where there are no foreign players now, here we have to rely heavily on imports.”
It would be easy for the players to get carried away after the great start, but Waslimin says everyone has their feet on the ground.
“To be honest, I have been surprised by the commitment and the performances of the players. We will try to maintain this, but there is still more than three quarters of the season to go,” he said.
“I have told the players not to have big heads and to stay focused. It is too early to think about a title challenge. At the start of the season we thought finishing in the top five would be a realistic goal and there is no reason to change that.”
Last night’s result:
Balestier Khalsa 2 Geylang United 1
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