Preview: Tampines Rovers vs Albirex Niigata (S)

All eyes on Aliff as Stags host Albirex

Tam Cheong Yan
info@sleague.com

Tampines Rovers will be looking to birthday boy Aliff Shafaein for inspiration when they host Albirex Niigata FC (Singapore) at Tampines Stadium on Monday evening.

The player turns 27 on the eve of his team’s clash with the White Swans, in which he is expected to play a key part in his team’s bid to claim only their fourth win of the season.

Tampines remain unbeaten in the league after nine matches, although six of those have ended in draws, putting them six points behind leaders SAFFC.

But while they have had problems winning games, their attacking line remains one of the most exciting to watch in the land, and much of that has to do with the player nicknamed “The Little Master” for his outstanding technical ability.

Whether playing as strike partner to Noh Alam Shah or in a link-man capacity in the Tampines midfield, Aliff has consistently proven competent in performing the tasks asked of him.

And Stags coach Vorawan Chitavanich is relying on his No.19 to keep up his side’s seven-match winning streak against the White Swans, dating back to August 2006.

“Aliff will be a central part of the team’s plan against Albirex,” the Thai told sleague.com.

“I hope he will be ready to start. I want to use him as a support player, just behind Alam Shah and Qiu Li.

“He has very good technique, and you can see that every time Aliff plays, the team’s movement is very good. His problem is not that he is short, but he doesn’t have the fitness for 90 minutes.

“We are trying to give him special fitness training. It is hard sometimes because the rest time between matches can be long or short, but now that we are regularly using him, I hope it will help him build his fitness up.”

The boyish-looking forward was a major contributor to the Stags’ goal count last season, having led the club charts with 14 in all competitions.

Having achieved a career best with that haul, things have not worked out quite as well for Aliff this year.

“I’ve only had one goal so far, and that’s a bit slow from me,” he admitted.

“Last year, I started scoring from the first game onwards, and that gave me confidence. But this year, I’ve been struggling to score, so getting my first goal in the Young Lions game has lowered the pressure on me.”

Having already got off the mark against the Young Lions, Aliff will be eager to add to his tally, a task he is uniquely well-placed to achieve on Monday.

He is the only player in the league to have scored against Albirex in all three meetings last term, although he modestly attributed that to a generous disposition from the White Swans – for which he expects no repeat this time around.

“I think I had the luck against them last year, but this year might be different,” he noted.

“When we played in a friendly against them this year, their players kept on pressuring us for most of the game. That is not like last year, when they didn’t really press us much.

“They didn’t mark me last year in all three games; they just gave me the space to move. It’s as if they can’t be bothered to mark me, even after I had scored the first two times.

“This year, I think they know already that they have to mark me and the rest of the team, and I expect they will be pressing us again.”

Apart from the pressing, Albirex are also famed for their high-paced brand of football, with wide forwards Keisuke Ogawa and Akira Takase most iconic of this style.

With natural speed merchants Ridhuan Muhammad and Khairul Amri absent through injury, the Stags have few players who can boast similar strength in this area.

While Vorawan acknowledged that his team will be disadvantaged in the speed department, he was confident Tampines can counter that by playing possession football.

The 47-year-old further revealed his hand when he declared he is likely to plump for a four-pronged attacking line, provided Qiu shows no signs of the niggling groin strain that had limited him to substitute appearances in the Stags’ last two matches.

“The Albirex players are all young, and they move a lot on the field,” he observed.

“Their technique with the ball is not bad also, but if they cannot have the ball, what can they do? And that is our plan – to keep the ball as long as possible so we make them do all the running.

“Then, if we have the chance to score, we will try to score. That is one problem we have now; our finishing is not there, and that’s why we are training on that part every time.

“If Qiu Li comes back, we can work on our combination play with him, Alam Shah, Aliff and Sutee (Suksomkit). All four can play together, and that will make our attack strong.”