RHB Singapore Cup: Tampines toil through to quarterfinals
Tam Cheong Yan
info@sleague.com
Tampines Rovers barely did enough to earn themselves progress in the RHB Singapore Cup, as they squeezed past Sengkang Punggol with a 1-0 win on Sunday evening.
The result set the three-time winners up for a quarterfinals meeting with Albirex Niigata FC (Singapore) – but going by their performance on the night, they may well have to get themselves into much better shape when the tie takes place almost four months later.
A powerful free kick in the first half from Fahrudin Mustafic was all that showed up on the scoresheet, in a scrappy match that never really saw either side get going.
Both teams might point to a catalogue of spurned opportunities on either end, although it was not so much the closeness as it was the lack of fluency that characterized the contest.
Tampines went with the same eleven that had started in their league victory over Albirex two weeks ago, Noh Alam Shah keeping his place despite suffering from a knee injury.
The visitors stuck with their trusted 4-4-2 formation as Nor Azli Yusoff was handed his first start of the season, the rightback covering for the suspended Jerry Bartholomeusz.
Farizal Basri was meanwhile picked to start on the left flank ahead of Razali Johari, and he proved a troubling presence for Stags wingback Satria Mad in the early stages.
It took Satria just eleven minutes to collect the first booking of the match, when he committed himself into a clumsy foul on Farizal that had the Sengkang fans up in arms.
He was almost joined in the book by Seiji Kaneko two minutes later when the latter clattered into Indra Sahdan Daud from behind, but referee Abdul Malik Bashir ruled that the challenge from the former Kashima Antlers man was more robust than ill-intended.
Instead it was Nor Azli who became the next player to be booked on 18 minutes, amid a start that was noted more for the messy tackles than for any decent amount of team play.
That said, there were chances for goals, more of which fell to the hosts in the first half, and Qiu Li in particular was in the midst of the best and the worst of those moments.
The striker somehow contrived to stop teammate Sutee Suksomkit from bundling the ball home on 20 minutes, before having a breakdown in communication with Alam Shah moments later that led to his pass to the latter going astray.
But then he redeemed himself somewhat by setting up a good lob that Akihiro Nakamura volleyed over, before firing a shot himself that drew an excellent save from Joey Sim.
Interestingly enough, it was Sim who looked like the best player on the pitch with his competent goalkeeping, even as the rest of the Dolphins looked nowhere close to the team that had won their last two matches in the league.
Anthony Bahadur, who had scored in both those matches, looked much less interested in getting a goal this time around, and was often out of sync with strike partner Indra.
The closest he came to contributing was on the half-hour mark, when he cut into the penalty area with a decent run with three Tampines defenders in close pursuit, before stumbling and going to ground.
Despite coach Jorg Steinebrunner’s instant appeal for a penalty, the case for the Canadian was weak, and the Dolphins were left to rue that moment six minutes later.
Nor Azli had conceded a foul just outside the area when he brought Sutee down, and the Thai initially looked set to take the free kick himself.
But then up stepped his captain Mustafic to have a crack, and the decision proved inspired as he blasted a powerful shot beyond Sim and into the far side of goal to hand the Stags a precious lead.
Sengkang sought an immediate response, and Farizal proved an important outlet for chances as he kept making life difficult for Satria, who was repeatedly drawn into fouls.
Tampines coach Vorawan Chitavanich decided to act by replacing him at the interval with Ridhuan Muhammad, who was still recovering from a torn shoulder ligament.
Ridhuan almost doubled the lead for the hosts within a minute of his introduction, when he played a hot cross-shot that Sim could only push away for a corner.
The young goalkeeper then did well to dispossess Sutee with his left foot on 52 minutes, before Hiroyuki Yamamoto spurned a chance to pull the Dolphins level by heading Farizal’s cross over the bar.
Both teams kept on trying to fashion chances, but in truth the game was about as unexciting as the muted noises from the crowd, which numbered a very modest 1,406.
Tampines came closest on 70 minutes when Qiu played a decent short cross to substitute Aliff Shafaein, but the diminutive forward jumped too eagerly for the ball and ended up heading it up and over the bar.
A late flurry of activity then came in front of the Stags goalmouth, as both Indra and Sobrie Mazelan failed to make Hassan Sunny work with headers that too went off target.
Sim too was made to work as he saved a Nakamura blast on 79 minutes, before defenders Zahid Ahmad and Lau Meng Meng impressed on separate occasions to prevent Tampines from adding to their lead.
In the end, though, both teams hardly managed to distinguish themselves in the match, and the Stags could count themselves lucky to get the one goal that made the difference.
Mustafic: I had the feeling
Tampines Rovers captain Fahrudin Mustafic revealed that he had the ‘feeling’ he could convert the free kick that clinched his team a 1-0 victory over Sengkang Punggol.
His decision to act on his hunch left his team pleased as they advanced to the RHB Singapore Cup quarterfinals, but he also thanked teammate Sutee Suksomkit for letting him take the chance.
“It was good to score, of course, and I think it was my first ever from a free kick,” the midfielder told sleague.com.
“Usually Sutee is the No.1 taker, and he’s really the specialist at free kicks. But at that moment, I had a feeling I could score it, so I went to tell him ‘I want to take this one.’
“He was good about it, Sutee, he encouraged me to go for the far post. It’s good we can talk about these things on the field, and luckily for me and the team, the ball went in.
“It’s nice that it was the winning goal, and it’s nice to score my first goal this season. But the most important thing is that we got the win and qualify to the quarterfinals.”
Mustafic also jumped to Stags striker Noh Alam Shah’s defence after the latter’s quiet night on the field, praising him instead for his commitment to the team despite carrying an injury.
“I think Alam Shah did okay, because he didn’t train much this whole week,” noted the 28-year-old.
“He’s had some problem with his knee injury, but you have to give credit to him. He was in pain, but he decided to play for the team, which is great for team spirit.
“He showed us how important this game is for us by playing even when he’s not well. Maybe he missed a couple of chances, but in the end I thought he did a great job.”
Sengkang coach Jorg Steinebrunner was disappointed to see his team bow out, but was nonetheless pleased to see his charges make a fight of the game against Tampines.
The German did note, however, that the Dolphins needed to work on their finishing, after they had fluffed several chances that could have pulled them level and forced extra time.
“I think we don’t deserve to be out, because Tampines were not the better team,” he claimed.
“It was quite even, it was a good cup game, and even though Tampines were a good team, we made things difficult for them on their home ground. I think that’s a credit to the boys.
“We created enough chances in the second half to get ourselves an equalizer. If you look at the performance from the team, yes, we were up against a team that’s top-three quality with their national team players and all, but still we created enough chances.
“The only thing we didn’t do today is hit the target – we had a few crosses where the players couldn’t get their free headers on target. The thing now is to work on putting those chances away, and we’ll be back to what we had in our last couple of games.”
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