Wednesday, 16 March 2011 20:21
Singapore: Muang Thong United coach Henrique Calisto cut an angry figure after seeing his side hang on for a 1-1 draw against Tampines Rovers on Wednesday. Aleksandar Duric opened the scoring for Tampines in the 23rd minute before Phichitphong Choeichiu equalised just after the half-hour mark.
“I’m not satisfied. With these players, we should have done much better,” said Calisto.
“We needed to be more disciplined especially in our tactics. My team never followed what I told them.”
The former Vietnam national team coach bemoaned how his backline gave Duric the freedom of Jalan Besar to notch the opening goal of the game.
“The first goal was a crazy mistake. I was telling them before not to give him space and yet they lacked discipline,” he added.
Calisto then promised that failure to toe the line will not be tolerated on his watch and vowed to ring the changes as they look forward to the double header against Maldivian side Victory SC.
“With me here no more!” the Portuguese tactician said in reference to his players failure to follow instructions.
“I would like to change things but now we must take it one game at a time
“That said, tonight was probably a fair result in the end. We were better in the first-half but we got really tired in the second. Both teams had chances to score so it was probably fair.”
His opposite number Steven Tan could not help but rue the missed opportunities that could have seen Tampines grab an advantage in the group.
“When we play at home, we really needed to finish off the chances we had,” the 40-year-old said.
“The three chances that Duric had, he should have scored at least one. If one of them had gone in, things would have been very different.”
Former Singapore international Tan pointed to the introduction of diminutive winger Aliff Shafaein in the second-half as one of the factors that turned the tide for the home side.
“With Aliff, we had someone making the runs off the ball and that’s probably what helped us dominate the second-half,” he added.
“It was a game of two halves really and in the first, we were hanging on a bit I must admit. We were chasing shadows at times.
“My team worked really hard and everybody tried their best. That was what I told them at half-time which was to continue working hard and the chances will come.
“The group is now wide open and there’s everything to play for. The next two games against Hanoi will probably determine whether we go through before we go to Thailand to play Muang Thong again in the last game of the group.”
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