Written By: Kenneth Ho

Courts Young Lions coach Juergen Raab expressed his displeasure at Balestier Khalsa for employing a successful defensive strategy to earn a 1-0 win over his team.

Balestier came into the looking to go level on points with league leaders Brunei DPMM, and could only do so by claiming maximum points.

However, Balestier coach Marko Kraljevic set his guys out to attack on the counter instead and the Tigers played with a deep defensive line.

The strategy worked a treat as Young Lions struggled to penetrate Balestier’s defence, and ultimately conceded a goal on the counter, with Robert Pericic striking in a fine effort in the 77th minute.

Courts Young Lions coach Juergen Raab was certainly not impressed by how the Tigers had approached the game, and even less so with his side’s defending after they left Pericic unmarked to put the ball into the net.

“We tried the whole 90 minutes but I saw one team who won’t play football,” Raab said.

“They played only with long balls and hoped for a mistake. I told my team at half-time please not to give them a chance because they are waiting for this but we made such a mistake,

However, Kraljevic shrugged off suggestions that his side did not deserve the win and stated that a hallmark of a good team is its ability to grind out wins.

“We didn’t play well [but] that’s the quality of a good team, we won the game so that means we have a lot of quality,” Kraljevic said.

“I believe always that if we can keep a clean sheet and defend well, we can go and score every game.”

Kraljevic also explained that he adopted a defensive game plan as he did not want to underestimate the Young Lions.

“It’s not easy to play Young Lions, they are a much better team now (compared to the start of the season),” he added.

“Young Lions, we must give credit to them. They played very well, but we were patient. We go every game, we create chances, we have quality in attack and that paid off.”