Warriors “still up there” despite early setbacks

Tam Cheong Yan
info@sleague.com

Reigning S.League champions SAFFC may have lost the first round of their head-to-head battle with shock upstarts DPMM FC, but it would be foolish to read too much into that result with the season far from over.

That was the message sent by their coach Richard Bok, who pointed to his team’s current second-place standing in the league as it takes a one-week break for the preliminary round of the RHB Singapore Cup.

The Warriors were ousted from top spot after a 1-2 loss to the Bruneian outfit in Bandar Seri Begawan on Sunday, capping off a week of negative results for the team.

They had earlier been given a 5-0 hiding by J-League champions Kashima Antlers in an AFC Champions League meeting in Japan.

That game in Ibaraki, which was held on Wednesday, proved too exhausting for many of the SAFFC players, and it showed as they performed below their best against DPMM.

But speaking in an exclusive interview with sleague.com, Bok insisted that the club had no regrets over their emphasis on the continental campaign, which had resulted in a very congested fixture schedule for the most successful side in S.League history.

“Are we surprised to lose to DPMM and place second? Yes and no,” he noted.

“Yes, we lost, but I think that’s coming after we had to fly to Japan to play in the Champions League, come back and immediately fly out again to Brunei. If you’re going to tell me the travelling doesn’t have an effect on the players, something is wrong!

“It takes a lot of energy and effort for the boys to play in the ACL, and after every game, some of the players tell me they cannot walk anymore. In fact, because we participate in so many games, most of my training sessions have been about recovery and not tactics.

“We’ve not performed well in the league as a result, we’ve been inconsistent back home, but it’s a matter of give and take. Hopefully, once we’ve completed our part in the ACL, we can get more time to focus back on the league and the Singapore Cup.”

Indeed, SAFFC’s participation in the AFC Champions League has proven a taxing affair on the overall, and they have lost some of their aura of invincibility as a consequence.

The loss on Sunday was already their third in their first ten league games, having dropped points earlier against Woodlands Wellington and Gombak United.

Despite those setbacks, though, the Choa Chu Kang-based outfit remain second in the league and in firm contention for their fourth consecutive title, which Bok regarded as a pleasant surprise.

Noting that other major contenders have also dropped points early on, he was confident his team can make a greater impact with a second-half charge.

“If you look at the big picture, hey, we are still up there,” he said with a relaxed smile.

“That is the positive thing – we are still there after ten games, with the three losses we’ve had. In past years, if you lose three games, you’d be further down the table, not second or third.

“Of course, we would love to be way ahead, but it did not happen. Once it did not happen, we must stay as close in front as possible, and if you look now, we are just one point below DPMM.

“Anything can happen, so we just have to get back our belief and go full blast for the second half of the season. It’s still early, so it’s not important where we are now, as long as we are close; we’ll see where we are at the end of the year.”

Interestingly, the defeat in Brunei is not the first time SAFFC had dropped a ‘big’ game at this point of the season.

In 2007, they had lost 0-2 to archrivals Home United in Week 10 in a televised match at Jalan Besar Stadium. Last year it was the Super Reds who trumped Bok’s side, Yun Bo Young scoring late on in the Week 9 fixture to edge a five-goal thriller at Yishun.

Both teams proceeded to run the Warriors close before finishing second in the respective seasons, and despite their indifferent starts to the current campaign, they are still considered by Bok as among his team’s toughest challengers.

The 39-year-old has in fact singled the Koreans out for attention, noting that Jeon Kyeong Joon’s side may not be far from storming their way back into title contention.

“Last year’s 2-3 loss against Super Reds was a very exciting game, one of the best games ever in the league,” remarked Bok.

“Even now, don’t think that Super Reds are out of the running! They are a good side, and they will give a lot of teams a lot of problems.

“Everybody still has lots of respect for the Super Reds team, and I think they have been a bit unlucky with their finishing. They have good build-up, and if they can finish, they’ll be the team at the top of the table again.

“Like them, DPMM have charged to the top this year, but the way these two teams play their football is very contrasting. One is based on very good movement and passing, and the other is a ‘Route One’ team that likes to play the ball forward quickly.”

Moving on to the team currently holding pole position, Bok admitted that he was not sure whether DPMM look like the real deal to Singaporean fans despite the media hype.

While he acknowledged that Vjeran Simunic’s boys have done surprisingly well so far, he dropped a hint that things may not keep on running this smoothly for the newcomers.

“Brunei is not remembered for their football, and they’re on top of us right now, so you have to ask ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’” he said.

“I don’t know what it is about them that’s caught us by surprise. There’s nothing fancy about their play; I guess they’re new, so they have great desire to make an impact, being newcomers and all.

“They are hardworking, they are hungry, there’s no doubt about that. But to say they play like Barcelona, like what their coach claimed after the game on Sunday – well, I don’t know if that’s what he thinks, really!

“But DPMM still have to play us twice in Singapore, and we’ve got a lot of good teams here who are in with a shout. So we’ll have to wait and see.”