Just A Few Things: KL Vs. Pahang

Credit- Malaysia Football League

Iron Man Returns!

Nicknamed ‘Orang Besi’, it was Dickson Nwakaeme’s first start in a football match for around two years and his first start in a Malaysian competitive match since 2015. After tonight, it’s as if he never left. He picked up where he left off and provided a brilliant display at the Cheras Stadium. The Nigerian striker played a huge role in creating chaos and uncertainty with his movements and physique

With such a bright display, all that was left for him to score a goal to mark his return. Thankfully for him, fate was kind to him as confusion reigned in the box where no one reacted to the loose ball by KL’s near post. As a result, Nwakaeme reacted quickest to pounce on it and struck the roof of the net point-blank to restore Pahang’s lead. It got even better as he capitalized on a defensive mistake and scored after he calmly rounded Sharbinee Allawee deep into injury time (Though there were a few questionable calls by the ref prior to that). He could’ve scored more, a lot more, had it not been a certain goalkeeper.

Nwakaeme was one of the most important players Pahang had in 2014 when they won the FA Cup and Malaysia Cup in that year and the fans love him so much and welcome him back with open arms. You can see how much this performance meant to him after his last dismal spell with Angers SCO in the French Ligue 1 when he hugged head coach Dollah Salleh in the picture above. Welcome back to the M-League, Dickson.

Same Old, Same Old

If all goes well, Pahang’s attack will be a force to be reckoned with. Last season, they had people buzzing, but inconsistency and injury issues stalled their momentum midway through the season, though they did shined where it mattered the most in the FA Cup final. What we witnessed here was Pahang reminding everyone what they could do with their heavy attacking football. Other than Nwakaeme, the likes of Ze Love, Mohamadou Sumareh & Saddil Ramdani, who opened the scoring, overwhelmed their opponents to the point they had to resort to some desperate defending to stop them. Pahang has sent a clear message that they’re looking to dazzle once again. Though only scoring their third very late, the scoreline is what they deserved.

Meanwhile, KL had the worst defensive record among all the Super League teams last season, letting in 51 goals in 22 games. That’s about 2.31 goals conceded every game. The only central defenders they bought in were FELCRA’s Alif Samsudin & Melaka United’s Khair Jones.

Instead, KL has opted to field Irfan Zakaria & Ryutaro Karube, both of whom are primarily midfielders, though we have seen Irfan so many times in this centre-back position. And yet, he & Karube, who guilty in giving away the ball in the build-up to Pahang’s third, were given a harsh lesson by Nwakaeme and his fellow forwards and the defence never looked fully composed until the second half. Alif was on the bench and Jones & Indonesian player, Achmad Jufriyanto were not named in the matchday squad. There were predictions KL would wind up relegated and after that defensive display, it’s easy to see why.

Sharbinee The Lollipop Man

It could’ve been far worse had Sharbinee Allawee not been in goal. The goalkeeper, looking to play his first full season since his return, played a crucial part in keeping Pahang’s goal count low. While there was nothing he could do with the opener, he pulled some great saves. First, saving Nwakaeme’s strike just inside the box, then getting down quick to prevent Faisal Rosli’s searing low strike going into his near post, denying Nwakaeme again stunningly in a one-on-one, just to name a few stops.

If Pahang is the traffic, Sharbinee would’ve been the traffic police. However, he was culpable for Pahang’s second goal when he failed to realize quickly that the ball was near him that allowed Nwakaeme his first goal of the season. But he somewhat made amends by flying like a rocket to save Nwakaeme’s piledriver from way out some more minutes later. It may be the first matchday of the season but following tonight, Sharbinee would have to look forward to make more saves than he would like as it’s going to be a long season for him and KL if this keeps up.

A Risk Worth Taking?

Head coach Yusri Che Lah knew KL were under the hammer for almost the entirety of the first half. In order to try and slow down Pahang’s attacks, he made a huge call. He withdrew Dutch striker Sylvano Comvalius for a much more defending-minded player in Alif Samsudin early in the first half. This wasn’t the first time KL sacrificed attacking prowess for defensive when they applied this approach in a Malaysia Cup match last season against Perak.

Despite the tactical change where Alif is slotted in midfield to provide extra cover, it only slowed Pahang’s intensity just a little bit and the Tok Gajah still had great chances to increase their goal count, so overall, the change had little effect. To give an indication how bad it was for KL, the stats according to Devinder Singh on Twitter showed that Pahang had 17 shots (10 on target) compared to KL’s four (two on target).

This is not how Comvalius imagined his M-League debut to go and it will be interesting to see how Yusri Che Lah will handle the situation following his big decision.

KL Attack Shackled

As a result of Comvalius being hauled off, De Paula assumed his old position as the lone striker. But was inconspicuously missing and that is largely due to Harold Goulon’s presence near him. The ex-Blackburn Rovers defender was tasked to keep the Brazilian quiet while Muslim Ahmad’s job was to sweep the ball clear. Every time a ball was going towards De Paula’s direction, Goulon would be there to cut it out almost every time.

Since there is no Comvalius to support him, it became a lot more easier for the Goulon & Muslim to defend KL’s attacks. Though they were caught out when Afiq Ahmad Razali took three minutes since his half-time introduction to equalize. Other than that, the only other time they had to keep their toes up towards the end of the match with KL attempting to hit a sucker punch, but thanks to Nwakaeme it was job well done for Goulon & Muslim