Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Addison Fires Persipura Back To The Summit
Persipura have never relied purely on Boas Solossa for goals over the years. Their successful teams have always seen the local lad done good work in tandem with a foreign striker and together they have been wreaking havoc on local defenders for the best part of a decade. Having two strikers may seem antiquated and quaint to hipster tactic connoisseurs but it sure as hell ties local defenders in knots.
In recent years the Black Pearls have enjoyed the sight of players like Ernest Jeremiah and Alberto Goncalves knocking in the goals and when the club signed Addison Alves, a Brazilian striker who had been playing in Thailand in recent years, the supporters must have been rubbing their hands in glee at the coming goal fests.
However it was not to be and Persipura started the 2017 season slowly. They may have still been difficult to beat but the power and the pace we have come to associate with the team was strangely missing. A nadir came when they had a player sent off against PSM after two minutes and went on to lose the game 5-1. Coach Liestadi was sacked and Wanderley Junior brought in as his replacement.
Addison was also failing to fire. With Boas finally starting to show signs of aging catching up Persipura were entitled to expect more from their Brazilian striker who had previously played for Persela. He knew Indonesia, surely he knew what was needed?
It wasn't till the end of May, his seventh game for the club, that Addison broke his duck and as is so often the way with strikers he hasn't stopped scoring since with seven in his last nine games including the pair that defeated PS TNI last time out. Persipura are unbeaten in their last six and now share top spot with Bhayangkara with an away game at Sriwijaya this weekend.
The 2017 campaign is turning into a mirror image of the 2016 ISC season, Persipura starting the season slowly, replacing a local coach with a Latin American one and suddenly hitting form around the middle of the campaign. Will history repeat the and Black Pearls go on to lift their fifth title since 2009? With Addison now firing on all cylinders who is going to bet against them?
# posted by Me @ 4:29 PM 
