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In their first ten matches this season, SAFFC had conceded just six goals.
In their eleventh on Thursday evening, however, their defence simply fell apart as they let in as many in the space of 90 minutes.
Shotaro Ihata hit four goals as Albirex Niigata (Singapore) swept an uncharacteristically sloppy SAFFC 6-3 at Jalan Besar Stadium in the highest scoring match of the season so far.
The White Swans raced to a quick 3-0 lead just after 27 minutes, although SAFFC managed to score twice themselves thereafter and trail by only two goals at half-time.
Two quick goals for each side, including a penalty by Mislav Karoglan, in the first five minutes of the second half kept supporters on the edge of their seats, but the killer goal for the Japanese side only came on 89 minutes as Shotaro Ihata grabbed his fourth and final goal.
“It was a ding-dong game,” said SAFFC coach Richard Bok of the match.
“We made a lot of mistakes defensively. Out of six we gave them five goals. The first one was a damn good shot from their No.5 (Kazuki Kobayashi), but the other five are soft goals that we gave away.
“It is about converting chances. We do have chances, but we couldn’t convert more than them, that’s why we lost the game.”
There was just one change to the Albirex side that had lost 0-1 to Hougang United last week, with Bruno Suzuki Castanheira replacing Yosuke Saito in the first eleven.
The Warriors made a solitary change as well, Taisuke Akiyoshi’s jaw injury giving Noh Rahman a place in the starting lineup.
Bok had said before the game that solid defending, like they had done in the past ten games, would be the key to the game.
So he would not have been happy that his side conceded an early goal, even though it could not have been fair to blame his rearguard.
Kobayashi scored a screamer from distance that flew past SAFFC goalkeeper Shahril Jantan to give Albirex the lead in the eighth minute.
The goal seemed to stun the eight-time champions, and they tried to forge a reply through centreback Bah Mamadou, who saw his deflected shot in the tenth minute saved by Yoshito Matsushita before his header eight minutes later sailed just over the bar.
On 21 minutes, however, SAFFC found themselves two goals down.
Castanheira forced a splendid save by Shahril at his near post, and from the resulting corner, White Swans captain Shimpei Sakurada turned the ball in at the near post.
Although there was a white-shirted man standing on the line, he could not keep the ball out, allowing Albirex to get their second goal of the night.
Another defensive mistake gifted the White Swans their third goal. Under no apparent pressure, Daniel Bennett was shrugged off the ball by Ihata just outside the six-yard box, and the Japanese striker calmly slotted the ball beyond the SAFFC custodian.
At the other end, Karoglan did the same thing to pull a goal back two minutes later, exploiting an Albirex defender’s failure to execute a straightforward clearance header to gain possession of the ball inside the area and score SAFFC’s first goal, sending the ball between Matsushita’s legs.
Just a minute later, Fazrul Nawaz had a great opportunity to make it 2-3 when he was sent through on goal by Ivan Jerkovic. However, the national striker pulled his shot wide with only Matsushita to beat.
Yet another defensive error by the Warriors restored the White Swans’ three-goal cushion on 37 minutes, when Ihata picked up a cross and sent a powerful volley home.
The goalfest continued just two minutes later, when Jerkovic curled a trademark free kick from the edge of the area past the Albirex custodian to make it 4-2 to the Japanese side.
Just before half-time, Fazrul could have slashed the deficit further, but his dive could not make proper contact with Mustaqim Manzur’s cross.
Having witnessed six goals in the first half, the fans did not have to wait too long for the second half to produce more.
Two minutes after the interval, Castanheira broke away from the SAFFC defence in a counterattack before unselfishly squaring the ball to strike partner Ihata to complete his hat-trick.
At the other end, SAFFC pulled another goal back again when Norihiro Kawakami was adjudged to have pushed Fazrul when both went up for a cross. The call looked soft, but Karoglan made no mistake from the spot to make it 3-5.
SAFFC continued to push for more goals in a bid to level the match, and they had a couple of opportunities through their front two.
Karoglan’s volley from the middle of the box went straight at Matsushita, and Fazrul poked the ball wide in a later chance after managing to get himself into a good position.
Albirex had their chances as well, with Ihata blasting over after he was through on goal on 62 minutes, before Castanheira shot wide after he did all the hard work to get away from the defence.
Bok brought on striker Indra Sahdan Daud and threw substitute defender Daniel Hammond up front in late bids to cut the deficit, but it was Ihata who finally got the game’s ninth goal a minute from time, dispossessing the Warriors defence to score his fourth goal of the evening.
There would be no more after that, as the match ended 6-3 to Albirex, a scoreline that deeply embarrassed Bok as he struggled for answers.
“We need to regroup and look at what went wrong defensively,” he said candidly.
“We have been very solid defensively the past ten matches, but today, every time they (Albirex) touched the ball, it went in, and every time we touched it, it was saved or went out.
“These are not the type of goals that we normally give away. We gave away possession in our own defensive third and they capitalised.
“We have to look at the video and hopefully we can tighten things up at the back.”
When asked if he had any positives from the match like this, the 41-year-old said there was just one.
“The only positive I can take from this match would be that we created chances. If we took them, who know what could have happened? We created but didn’t convert.”
Albirex coach Koichi Sugiyama was meanwhile delighted with his team’s work in hitting six goals, the first time they have done so this season.
“After the loss against Hougang, the team focused on scoring, and this is the result of their practice,” he said after the match.
“I am impressed with every goal.
“I don’t like to think too much about scoring and the scorers. I like to think about the buildup to the goals too. It is good that we scored six today, but I thought we should have controlled the game more.
“It was dangerous that we couldn’t control the game in the first half. In the second half, I put on Shuhei Hotta, and then we could control the game more.
“Bruno has played very well this season, but all my players are very good players. All 22 players are up for selection at the start of every game, and all have a chance to start the match. It is my problem to decide who will play.
“Our target hasn’t changed after the first third of the season. We started with new players and now we are getting better with each game, so it is going to be easier to take points.”
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