Written by: Phoon Jia Hui

Albirex Niigata (S) ran out 4-2 winners over the visiting Courts Young Lions at Jurong East Stadium on Sunday evening as they moved to second in Great Eastern Yeo’s S.League.

There were four different scorers on display for the White Swans with Kazuki Sakamoto, Soichiro Tanaka, Kento Nagasaki and Kazuya Okazaki all finding the net.

Apart from the result, that was another fact which pleased Albirex coach Tatsuyuki Okuyama.

“Of course I’m happy with winning three points today and we wanted the players to score and four players did. We could also score from set-plays so I’m very happy with that point,” said the Japanese after the match.

However, the 38-year-old admitted there was still room for improvement from his defence.

“Defence, we have to improve that point,” Okuyama pointed out.

“As you can see, our defence is very organised and we can make blocks but because of our mistakes, we keep conceding goals so we have to improve on that point by decreasing the mistakes made.”

Young Lions coach Aide Iskandar meanwhile felt his players ‘tried their best’ but lost out to a more clinical Albirex side.

“I thought we started well. We never gave up even though we were 3-1, 4-1 down, we kept going,” said the ex-national skipper.

“We created goalscoring chances and we had our chances to score one or two but did not take it. The first two goals were a let-down but we were attacking and controlling the game especially in the second-half.

“I think that’s the difference between Albirex and us. We are a developmental team; we make mistakes whereas for them they minimize their mistakes. They are ruthless as well; they punished us whenever we make mistakes. We need to learn to be the same and put the ball in the net.”

However, he believed such defeats would only help his players learn and backed them to bounce back quickly.

“At the end of the day, in order for us to win games and to be able to overcome defeats is for us to learn as quickly as possible,” Aide said.

“I’m quite happy that Shameer [Aziq] played to my expectations, so hopefully he can grow because he has got potential. Syazwan [Buhari] also saved a penalty and that would give him confidence as well.”