Plazibat steals the show as Home United rout Young Lions

SINGAPORE - His signing was heralded as a coup for Home United, and Croatian striker Stipe Plazibat demonstrated exactly why on MOnday night (Feb 27) at the Bishan Stadium, as he scored four goals to lead the Protectors to a dominant 6-1 victory over last season’s celler-dwellers, the Garena Young Lions.

Home, boasting several Singapore internationals including Izzdin Shafiq, Faris Ramli and Hassan Sunny in their ranks, stamped their authority on the match right from the get-go as they sought to get their Great Eastern-Hyundai S.League season off to a perfect start.

Despite their dominance, it took until the 23rd minute before Home were able to break the deadlock, with winger Faris calmly slotting home after being set through on goal by striker Khairul Nizam.

That opened the floodgates for Home and six minutes later, they doubled their advantage as Plazibat took advantage of some hesitant defending from the Young Lions to fire the ball into the net from close range.

Five minutes before the break, the 27-year-old got his second of the night with a smart finish from a tight angle in the penalty box as Home took a three-goal advantage into half-time.

The Young Lions were given a glimmer of hope in the 51st minute when substitute Zulqarnaen Suzliman pulled a goal back after pouncing on a loose ball in the box.

But any thoughts of an improbable Young Lions comeback were cruelly snuffed out in the 55th minute when Plazibat got his hat-trick with a predatory finish after being found in the box by Nizam.

Faris then had the opportunity to pile on the misery on the visitors four minutes later when he won a penalty, but his resulting spot-kick was well saved by Young Lions custodian Zharfan Rohaizad.

But the 24-year-old made amends for his miss two minutes later as he sent a sweet through ball for Nizam, who finished unerringly past the despairing dive of Zharfan.

Plazibat, who was Hougang United’s top scorer with 16 goals last season, completed the rout in the 75th minute with a curled free-kick from 20-yards out which crept into the bottom corner of the net.

Reflecting on Plazibat’s match-winning performance, Home’s head coach Aidil Sharin said: “Once Plazibat opened his account, the goals just started pouring in. We showed faith in him and he displayed what he could do in this game.

“Hopefully he'll bring this form into the season. However, tonight’s game is not only about him. It’s also the team who performed well overall which helped him to score.

“It's always good to win the first game, especially as we haven't won our opening games for the past four seasons. I think the boys showed their hunger to win today and put in a lot of effort to get the victory.”

Young Lions head coach V Selvaraj conceded that his side were defensively naïve, but backed his charges to learn and grow from this humbling experience.

“Player to player, we were battling against senior players from the national team as well as foreign players,” said Selvaraj. “So of course it’s going to be a lot of instances where we can see the difference in quality.

“However, what is important is that we have to make use of these games to get better. Of course, it didn't come in a good way with six goals conceded, and we could have been tougher in defence especially.

“But I was glad that we managed to play out in certain situations even though we were under pressure, which was encouraging. The team is young, and some of them are making their S.League debuts, so I'm glad they're learning and seeing new things, and we’ll be looking forward to the next game now.”

Home’s next league match will see them take on Brunei DPMM this Friday (March 3), while the Young Lions will hope to put on a better showing when they come up against reigning champions Albirex Niigata (s) a day later.