Global destroys Kaya and leaves the club with all sorts of questions that are in need of answers

Kaya and a sea full of question marks

by rick olivares

Even before the kick-off of the Global-Kaya match, I wondered aloud (inside the control room of UMak) that Global did their homework while Kaya went in with some tactical mistakes. And that feeling only got reinforced as the game progressed.

What makes this worse in my opinion is that they committed the same tactical mistakes in their earlier match with Loyola.

Take a gander at the lineups and formations:

GLOBAL

Etoundi

Barbaso    Guisso    J. Guirado    Basa

Reichelt    Hoshide    Kama    De Murga

El Habbib    Bahadoran

Burkey    Beloya    Dagroh

Romero    Omura    Moy

Semblat    Sabio    del Rosario   Mallari

Garmaroudi

KAYA

First of all the formation.

If Kaya’s forwards did not go back on defense then their midfield would be overwhelmed. And that is what happened.

Furthermore, Kaya received a significant upgrade in offense – well, supposedly – with the addition of Alu Kigbu. But I also thought that they had lost significantly on defense. Aly Borromeo has begun solo training but won’t be back until a few weeks. They let go of Ruffy Llorente who went to play for his old college coach Norman Fegidero in Pachanga. That’s two cogs on D. They started Eddie Mallari in right back when he is not a right back. Then in an effort to spark the offense, they reinserted Jonah Romero back to left midfield. While they moved Adrian Semblat to LB. That’s three moves in the back four with Anton del Rosario moving to CB.

I love Eddie Mallari but he is no RB and he does not have the speed to go up against Misagh Bahadoran. Anton would have been an ideal match-up but by the time they switched, Bahadoran was making del Rosario eat dust. Why wasn’t Masih Razaei started at LB when he has played well there?

If they watched the Pachanga-Global match during the cup, they would have noticed how Kross Ubiam shut down Izzo while playing stopper. Ubiam did go in but not as a stopper.

Three of Global’s early goals came from the left wing and from assists or targets from Bahadoran.

Mysteriously, Kaya did not match up speed for speed as they benched Kigbu and Boley. I have always thought that the speed of those two helped create match up problems. Not in this instance.

And Global’s mastery of the midfield rendered Romero, Lexton Moy and Masa Omura ineffective. Global left side defensive unit of David Basa and Juani Guirado has been solid. They shut down the wing play and Kaya continued to force the issue instead of trying to go through the middle where there was some success.

I thought that Beloya was lost in the scheme of things and was hardly a contributor to Kaya’s effort.

At the half, it was decided that they’d drop to a 442 with Burkey and Dagroh atop (AK47 went in for Beloya). But Burkey had to go back deep into his team’s territory to help bring that ball forward as nothing was coming from the midfield. For sure Boley coming in was huge but that was a 3-1 hole they had to dig themselves out of. The thing about Kaya is that they have not shown that they could come back from a deficit. They sure fought in the second half with Dagroh nearly scoring a brace but shots at goal were in short supply.

When Kaya finally quieted Bahadoran’s influence on the game, Angel Guirado came in and this time was on target with his crosses and free kicks. Global continued to play and perhaps for the first time all season, played as clinical as ever. They added two more goals to complete the humiliation of Kaya, 5-1.

The Juan Cutillas coached club averages 1.75 goals in every match. It sounds somewhat incredible when they have Dagroh, Beloya, Kigbu, Burkey, and Boley up front. For all the questions surrounding their offensive woes, they have a new question to answer – the glaring need for a left back.

They have one more match to play to close out their first round campaign. The problem is they’ll be up against Stallion, a club that plays with precision and quickness. And Kaya is like an island surrounded by a sea of question marks.