Just A Few Things: Selangor Vs. Felda United

Credit: Selangor FA

Is This How It Should Be?

It’s been three weeks since the uproar surrounding the departure of B. Sathianathan as Selangor head coach. Michael Feichtenbeiner, the Selangor FA technical director is assigned as the caretaker head coach for the main team. Since he took over, there have been encouraging signs on the way Selangor plays. After tonight, the signs were even more positive. Especially in the way they transition to attack.

Selangor were quickly on their way forward once they had the ball and they duly slam past six past poor Felda United. The rhythm Selangor showed going forward was brilliant as they took the Fighters to the sword as they took advantage of the gaps left open between defenders and the space left exposed, particularly down on the wings. Not only that, there were a few young players that took to the field showing Feichtenbeiner’s faith in them and to their credit, did well in this match with left-back Zikri Khalili showing excellent calmness and solidity down the left. With the way Selangor played (Granted, it was against off-form teams), scoring 16 goals in the last three games and the faith in youth, have we seen how Selangor will look in the future?

Defensive Concerns Persist

Despite the big victory, there were still worries about how the defence composed themselves when Felda attacked, especially when playing a high line, but we’ll get to that in a bit. The manner of Selangor conceding the equalizer could’ve been prevented had Taylor Regan been more firm in preventing Khairul Amri from diverting the ball to the path of Danial Amier to the near post before the midfielder finished a powerful shot.

When Felda did have the ball forward, there were a few times worryingly the Selangor defence had no distinct shape whatsoever. There doesn’t appear to be an offside trap planned as at least one defender, mostly Rodney Celvin would move up and be the temporary destroyer. To his credit though, he was solid on this night, especially keeping Singapore striker Khairul Amri quiet. But if Selangor was against much tougher opposition, it would’ve been a different story with the way they defended. After all, we’ve seen what happened down in the southern state a few weeks ago as an example of it.

Your Move, Eky

Perak’s Shahrel Fikri (AKA Eky) was leading the Golden Boot race prior to this match. But Nigerian hotshot Ifedayo OIusegun is not giving up yet as he threw the figurative gloves down the floor by scoring a hat-trick on this night. But he really should’ve got two instead. Just before half-time, Sandro Da Silva squared the ball to him and he duly scored into an open net, but replays showed that he was just offside.

He got his second from a penalty after Fadhil Idris dragged back Brendan Gan, then Ifedayo coolly slotted the penalty home. And to make the scoreline all the more attractive, Ifedayo was fed through on the left by substitute Rufino Segovia and finished with power to get Selangor’s sixth and complete his hat-trick in the 88th minute. Whether he meant it or not, Ifedayo has laid down the challenge to the in-form Perak striker. Now it’s Eky’s move albeit facing a difficult opponent against Kedah.

The Last Hurrah?

When news broke out that Felda will cease operations, there was an outpour of sadness by the Malaysian football community. But at the same time, there were questions on their long-term goals and the location of where they played. Nevertheless, Felda did well in their entirety of their existence by being in the Super League most of the time since they were first promoted to the top tier for the 2011 season.

Felda did Ok in keeping up with the fast pace of the game in the first half. Save for their equalizer, they only troubled Tauffiq a few times, most notably Syahmi Zamri’s lashing shot that the Selangor keeper did well to save considering his sight was partially blocked by one of his own defenders. But they slowly collapsed and lacked the quality up front to trouble Selangor enough, a testament to why they’ve mostly been poor all season and in turn, confirmed their relegation in the process. It was a sad way for their tenure in the M-League to end… Or will it?

There could be a saving grace which could lead to a fresh start. Felda United secretary-general Afizal Abu Othman, who is one of 16 staff members being terminated, has indicated to New Straits Times that talks will be held with a potential investor in a bid to save the team. Should the talks make a breakthrough, the entire team will not be disbanded provided the new investor would keep all of them onboard, but they will play under a different name. But they only have 19th October to do so, a deadline that was told by Afizal.