Game Day One: Metfone CPL talking points

Week 1 Take-Aways from the Metfone Cambodian Premier League

A League of Goals

As previously noted C League games have more goals than is healthy. A disparity between teams at the top and those at the bottom results in significantly more ‘exceptional’ score-lines than in more developed leagues worldwide.

The opening round of five CPL games provided further data to fit such a hypothesis. Five games, 24 goals at 4.8 per game. The cosmopolitan nature of the league also reflected – 10 nationalities scoring during Game Day One from Rwandans to North Koreans – 58% of goals scored by foreign players.

The Stars Perform

Shane Booysen, perhaps the best of the foreign players in the league, netted a hattrick for Phnom Penh Crown and was their stand-out performer. I had suggested his third goal was ‘dubious’ but own-goal rules clearly state that:

“ a shot which is already "on target" would not be an own goal even if deflected by the defender. In this case the attacker is awarded the goal, even if the shot would have otherwise been easily saved by the goalkeeper”  

So a hattrick and top spot on the scorers chart for The Booyse.

Joint second place is Chan Vathanaka. CV11 came off the bench for Boueng Ket Angkor and scored twice, including the stoppage time winner, versus Asia Euro United. Cruising at 2-0 up BKA conceded 85^th and 93^rd minute goals before their star player rescued the 3 points with the games final kick.

Goal of the Week

Lucky or perfectly judged?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIls7ebZAIA

A stunning swirling curling top corner strike from Western Phnom Penh’s Sun Bunny as the team with a terrible league record (nine wins across 44 games over the last two C League seasons) obtained a creditable 1-1 draw with Naga World at the Olympic Stadium.

Top Matches of Round Two

Saturday 27^th 15h30. Olympic Stadium

Naga World vs National Defense

The Army opened the season with a convincing win against the Police whilst Naga dropped points against Western Phnom Penh. However the casino sponsored team’s Cameronian striker Privat Mbarga, a close-season signing from Cambodian Tiger for whom he scored 19 goals last season, looked sharp and scored with a nice finish. These are two teams who may be well placed to challenge the Crown-Angkor duopoly for the title so both will be keen on a win and decisive start to the season.

Sunday 28^th 18h00, Svay Rieng Stadium

Svay Rieng vs Cambodian Tiger

Svay Rieng, the only team playing outside the capital, began emphatically with a 6-2 win over potential league whipping boys CMAC United. A sterner test for their second successive home match against Cambodian Tiger who were perhaps unlucky to lose 3-1 in their opener versus champions Phnom Penh Crown. A solid win here and Svay Rieng, who will play at home again in Round 3 prior to the international break, will be very satisfied with their season start.

Defending the Police: Ministry of Defence 4 - National Police 1

National Police 1 - Ministry of National Defence 4

Olympic Stadium, 21 Feb 2016

The Police and The Army.

Two Cambodian government institutions with far from perfect human rights records. Cambodian military spending increased by56.2% between 2010 and 2014 – more than any other ASEAN country. Some of that investment potentially into the football team of the Ministry of Defence looking to improve on last seasons 5^th place Metfone C League finish.

The Olympic Stadium, dynamic and noisy for evening national team encounters, but a sun-baked concrete bowl for this 15h30 kick-off. Groups of people huddled together in the areas of available shade between vast expanses of emptiness.

The astro-turf and sand pitch also impacting play – balls holding up off the abrasive surface; advantageous for attackers perilous for defenders.

The Police started quite positively – keen to use the flanks and with attackers Nuth Sinoun, a close season singing from Western Phnom Penh, and the small Sun Vandeth creative and fairly skilful. However the strike force of Ghanian Michael and South Korean Lee Jae-jin failed to click and as the game wore-on the body language of the pair rapidly declined.

Army began exerting control and took the lead through a header from a corner by captain Phoung Soksana. Soksana was influential, out-working team-mate and national team star Chinn Chhouen, and added a second before the break.

The domination continued in the second half – substitute Ke Vannak scored with his first touch whilst five minutes latter new North Korean signing Choe Myong-Ho scrambled home from close range and celebrated extravagantly. 

The 27 year-old who played in Russia for two years between 2005 and 2008 was described, according to WikiPedia, as “the NorthKorean Ronaldo” [the original Brazilian flavoured one], apparently after winning the 2005 FIFA Asian ‘Star of the Future’ award. We can be fairly sure his planned career trajectory at the time did not involve Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium on a Saturday afternoon.  Nevertheless he, and his mustard yellow boots, stood-out moving across both flanks and being a key part of Army’s attacking manoeuvres.

Michael pulled a goal back for the Police (after 3 games foreign players have scored 64% of all goals in the league) but the Army took three points and look like they could be a solid side this season.

Season Opener: Phnom Penh Crown 3 - Cambodian Tiger 1

19-2-2016

Not at the RSN Stadium,

Phnom Penh Crown 3 - 1 Cambodian Tiger

The opening match of the new Metfone C-League season and the champions, albeit champions who finished the last league season in second place, against the Japanese of Cambodian Tiger. With the new league schedule of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings more matches broadcast live across the Kingdom on BTV so, instead on the long trek to north-western Phnom Penh, watching the match through the eyes of the TV camera.

Most of the crowd, particularly any photogenic girls or dancing Barang, seem to get their faces on TV. Want to be a star – head to the RSN Stadium.

The stars on the pitch delivered an exciting, end-to-end and fairly competitive match. But a competitive match which delivered the average Phnom Penh Crown scoreline from last season: a 3-1 victory.

Tiger were energetic from the start – not looking as inept as my pre-season prediction of 7^th would suggest – and with better finishing would have a made a much closer match.  Murumatsu Tomoyuki, wearing number 9, causing the Crown right side defence problems. From one such sortie Om Tavrak heading just wide from the subsequent corner.

However on the 16^th minute Crown took the lead as their leading light – South African Shane Booysen – curled in an excellent free-kick from the edge of the Tiger area. 

In an instant, in an engaging first half, Tiger should have levelled – influential Soung Virak wonderfully fed by In Vichhai chested an easy chance into the hands of Keo Soksela. The Phnom Penh Crown goalkeeper had a good game  - he quickly needed to make another save from Tomoyuki with the rebound somehow headed over by his hapless compatriot Tomohiro Masaki.

Booysen, whose footprint on the game was increasing, forced a fantastic save from Hem Simay on 32 minutes – from the subsequent corner Keo Sokngon hit the woodwork with the goalkeeper completely beaten.

Half time 1-0 and Crown indebted to a combination of Booysen, all the set-pieces and much of the creativity for the home side, and the lack of a predatory killer instinct in the Tiger. Booysen doubled the champion’s advantage on 57 minutes –a nice finish after the tiger defence failed to clear the ball.

Tiger sub and player coach Masakazu Kihra – one career appearance in J League One – threatened to make the match competitive with a nice rising finish from the edge of the area. Learning technique from their coach would benefit Tiger's attackers.

Someone needing less technical training is Booysen. The South African’s deflected shot which, in the UK, would result in the dubious goals committee stealing his match ball, sealing the victory.

Three points for the Champions but encouragement for the carnivores.

A Metfone C-League season preview: Six Burning Questions

With the new 2016 Metfone Cambodian League kicking off this evening with the champions Phnom Penh Crown hosting the Japanese-seasoned Cambodian Tiger here are, in the flavour of the moment listicle-style, six burning questions for the upcoming season.

Will National Team ‘success’ help development of Cambodian players?

Success is, of course, relative but the participation in a competitive World Cup qualifying group (albeit with a record of seven losses out of seven; 21 goals conceded one scored) can only have benefited and generated valuable experience for key players. A narrow, perhaps unlucky, defeat against Afghanistan through a 6-0 home drumming in a deluge versus Syria to a couple of highly commendable performances in Singapore (2-1 defeat) and then at the Olympic Stadium versus Japan (2-0 defeat).

Shinji Kagawa, Leicester City’s Premier League title chasing striker Shinji Okazaki, and Keisuke Honda sharing a pitch with Keo Sokpheng, Khoun Laboravy, and Chinn Chhouen et al. and the Khmer not humiliated. Hopefully a solid step in building the capacity, technique, skill, and belief of the Cambodian players.

How many matches will be fixed?

Credit to Phnom Penh Crown for trying to be professional in circumstances that make tennis, and the ITF look, like a paradigm of cleanliness and virtue. Cambodia is ranked 150th globally by Transparency International and football clearly does not operate in a vacuum.

Match-fixing and club disharmony saw seven Crown players – including Sos Suhana the scorer of the only Cambodian goal in World Cup Qualifying – dismissed. Four were immediately signed by rivals Naga World. At the end of last season two teams folded and left the league a third, CMAC United, only saved by an injection of East Asian cash; with the gap between the best and the rest wide conditions are in place for further corruption.

CV11 – how good can he be and will he stay?

Player of the year. Player of the Mekong Club Championship. 37 league goals last year in a 22 game season.

He may be surprisingly underused by Lee Tae-Hoon and the National Team but Chan Vathanaka is the most exciting and dynamic Cambodian footballer and the leading star in the team that topped the league last season and mixed with the best of Mekong football.

In the close season there were rumours of a possible move to Japan – could CV11 be a successful local export from the Metfone Cambodian League to bigger and better things ? Lets enjoy his presence when he is still here.

Will Kelechi and Booysen be as good as the double Bs?

Last season George Bisan and Shane Booysen scored 48 goals, 63% of Phnom Penh Crown’s total, forming the league’s most deadly striking duo. In the close season the Nigerian Bisan signed for Than Quảng Ninh F.C. of Vietnamese League One. Crown replaced him with compatriot George Kelechi from Asia Euro Utd – a scorer of 23 goals last season. Phnom Penh Crown management will be hoping, amidst the major fluxes in coaching staff, that this African duo is as effective as the double B partnership. 

How many points with Phnom Penh Crown and Boeung Ket Angkor drop?

Barcelona and Real Madrid. Celtic and Rangers. A few leagues have a duoply of power.

Last season Phnom Penh Crown and Boeung Ket Angkor dominated the regular season league in emphatic style picking up 82% of league points available to them. Their goal difference was +53 and +55 respectively and the two teams, on average, won every match 3.5 to 1.1.

This season, with the play-off structure abandoned and a simple regular league season, are the opposition stronger or will these two teams run away with one of the most two-sided leagues in the world?

On paper Boeung Ket Angkor look weaker than last season, to date only three foreign players registered, whilst will internal issues (the new manager being replaced by the old manager ) impact Phnom Penh Crown? I would predict that the gap between these two teams, and potentially stronger Naga and National Defence, may be less than last season.

An influential East Asia Element?

As in many things in the Kingdom of Wonder the footprint of Japan and Korea is heavy on the countries football. One team – Cambodia Tiger – as Japanese as they come complete with mental half-time chorography whilst CMAC United were apparently sufficiently saved by Japanese investment to enter this season’s league championship.

On the pitch an equally East Asian element – at least 20 Japanese or Korean players registered as overseas professionals across the 10 C-League teams.  Only Phnom Penh Crown, for whom ironically it was South Korean Baek Yong-Son who scored the penalty that won last season’s title, without an East Asian player.

Intriguingly two North Koreans will further cement the special relationship with a country even more dismally rated by Transparency International than Cambodia. Kim Kyong-Hon and Choe Myong Ho, the latter apparently ‘the North Korean Ronaldo’, have signed for National Defence Ministry.

League Table Prediction

1.     Phnom Penh Crown (last season 2^nd but Champions via Play-off)

2.     Boeung Ket Angkor (1^st)

3.     Naga World (3^rd)

4.     National Defence Ministry (5^th)

5.     Svay Rieng (6^th)

6.     National Police (7^th)

7.     Cambodian Tiger (3^rd)

8.     Asia Europe Utd (10^th)

9.     Western Phnom Penh (11^th)

10. CMAC United (9^th)

A score draw at the Cambodian "Charity Shield"

6 Feb 2016
Phnom Penh Crown 1  - Boeung Ket Angkor 1, RSN Stadium

A pre-season friendly between the two best sides in the Metfone Cambodian League. A Charity Shield in all but name particularly given gate receipts, donations into a Perspex box, to the laudable, if any times eccentric, work of the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospitals. In a league where teams are sponsored by dodgy casinos and amongst the regions most environmentally destructive resource any charity appreciated.

The expected grand showdown between Phnom Penh Crown and Boeung Ket Angkor in last season’s championship play-off did not materialise – the latter perhaps distracted by their fantastic run in the Mekong Cup including upsetting the champions from Vietnam.

However this was shadow-boxing. The big names – Booysen, CV11 – absent; experimental players, including a creditable seven from the Phnom Penh Crown academy, and inexact tactics.

Phnom Penh Crown the better side in a goalless first half. Exploring the flanks, with the tiny Seut Baraing down the left particularly busy, and getting crosses in. But the quality of the final ball lacking and, on the rare occasions the attacks were penetrative, the excellent Sou Yaty, the best goalkeeper in Cambodia, keeping the home side out.

Crown took the lead early in the second half the busy George Kelechi, a new signing from Asia Europe United, finishing superbly after a nice pass from another new-boy - a rare forward exertion from French defender Anthony Aymard. Nigerian Kelechi, 23 goals (a stunning 64% of his former teams strikes) last season looked tidy but has big shoes to fill following compatriot George Bisan’s departure to the V-League.

However Boeung Ket Angkor struck back: Oum Kumpheak's shot, from a nice pass by Paul Omogba, only a few letters away from a star, taking an unlucky deflection off Kok Boris and beating the hapless Keo Soksela.

Two weeks till the season begins. Crown will take more from this result and surely preseason favourites to claim the title.