Written by: Muhammad Yazid

Home United came back from two goals down to knock Brunei DPMM out of the RHB Singapore Cup in the semi-final second-leg encounter and are marching into the final after claiming a 3-2 victory (4-3 on aggregrate).

The man behind the victory was certainly their coach, Lee Lim Saeng, whose half-time talk seemed to have overturned the fortunes for the defending champions.

“We needed to win the match badly and I am very happy to see the result because we deserved it. It is not easy to be trailing 2-0 and come back to win the game against a team which is leading the table at the (Great Eastern Yeo’s) S.League.” Lee expressed.

The Home coach then went on to share what he conveyed to his charges at half-time after describing what went wrong in the first half.

“We did not play well in the first half because we lost the ball too easily when we were preparing to attack,” Lee said.

“We needed composure and to believe in each other. After being 2-0 down, I saw my players’ movement and they seemed afraid.

“I needed to give them encouragement and thankfully they got back to their own style in the second half. That was how we won as I also made some tactical changes and we started dominating possession.”

His counterpart, Steve Kean was a calm and composed figure at the press conference despite suffering a shocking defeat.

The former Blackburn Rovers manager shared similar sentiments to Lee as he felt that it was a game of two halves.

The Scottish was very pleased with the first half’s performance, but never would he have guessed that the end of second half would bring about a shocking piece of result.

“In the first half, we controlled the game because we pressed at a high-line and did not let Home get any rhythm,” Kean mentioned.

“Credits to them because they changed tactically and caused us problems in the second half. We dropped too early getting nervous, failing to get over the halfway line.

“From back-four and midfield, we were protecting and trying to hold on for too long, that is inviting pressure. I could sense the pressure coming.

While Kean said that his side did well, he admitted there were some things which they could do better during the match,

“Sometimes if we try to go to second half to protect the lead, that is putting pressure on yourself because you cannot try to hold on for 45 minutes. We did not get the ball high enough on the pitch and dropped too deep,” Kean added.

“Eventually it could be smelt that we are nervous, and it throws caution and gives Home the momentum and psychological advantage. We did not show courage to go forward from then on.”