Tatung 5-1 NTUS ( att : 0 ) – Taiwan Premier League

May 3, 2020

The Chinese Taipei FA are streaming all matches in the Hua Nan Bank Taiwan Premier League on their YouTube channel and have now started providing a commentary in English for one match each weekend. Unlike other leagues who have been scheduling matches to maximise potential viewers, to-date all matches have kicked off at 9am UK Time on Sundays.

Taiwan’s national side are ranked 138 in the FIFA rankings, sitting below Andorra and Latvia, and in the recent World Cup Qualifiers they have played five, lost five, including losses to Australia ( 1-7 ), Kuwait ( 0-9 ),  Jordan ( 0-5 ) and Nepal ( 0-2 ). They even lost a friendly to the Solomon Islands, but they did beat Singapore and Hong Kong and drew in Myanmar.

This is the fourth season of the Premier League and Tatung have won all the previous editions. There are eight teams in the league and they play a 21 game season. Tatung and Taipower are the traditional rivals but Taiwan Steel aka Tainan City have apparently invested heavily, and were the Taiwan Times and South China Morning Post’s pre-seasons favourites this year. Taichung Futuro, another conglomerate sponsored side, were also fancied to do well, suggesting an increasing depth to the league.

Tatung play in the 20,000 Municipal Stadium in Taipei City, and as the 2019 Champions qualified for 2020 AFC Cup Group Stages, Asia’s equivalent to the Europa League, but these matches have been postponed because of the global pandemic.

Tatung have lost last season’s top scorer and Taiwan Player of the Year, the Turk & Caicos born Marc Fenelus, & International defender Chen Wei-Chaun, both to Taiwan Steel ( Tainan City ) for 2020. They have been respectively replaced by Ben Ouedrago from Burkina Faso and Luis Galo from Honduras. Tatung have been able to retain Ivorian Angel Samuel Kouamé, who hit 20 goals last year as well as the Turkey-born Taiwan international Omar Dogan, the first foreign born naturalised citizen to play for Taiwan, who found the net 14 times

After three rounds of fixtures, Taipower have already beaten Tatung and Taiwan Steel and top the league with a 100% record. Tatung’s start has been disappointing, following a 2-3 defeat against Taipower with a 4-0 win over rock bottom Taipei Red Lions and then a 2-2 draw with Taichung Futuro. Kouame has already scored 5 times for Tatung though.

Today’s English commentary was Tatung’s match against lowly ranked NTUS, who are actually the National Taiwan University of Sport. Based in Taichung in centre of Taiwan, they finished sixth in 2019. According to the commentators they also play in University leagues, all the players are under 25, and they haven’t won for 8 months. They were also sometimes referred to as US by the commentators. So far this season they have lost to Taichung Facturo ( 1-2 ), drawn with Ming Chaun ( 2-2 ) and lost to Hang Yuen ( 0-2 ).

All matches in Taiwan are currently being played behind closed doors but there was a small section of the stadium with cardboard cut-outs of Tatung players and some flags. 

The weather was bright and sunny and the pitch looked in excellent condition. Tatung were in light blue, similar to Lazio. NTUS in all dark green.

The early stages of the match saw neat attractive football with both sides looking to attack. However, it was all fairly lightweight, with all the strength and power coming from Tatung’s foreign players. The commentators referred to Kouame as Samuel and he looked the most dangerous player on show. After 25 minutes he looked offside but with play being waved on by the referee his attempted lob was saved by the NTUS keeper. From the resulting corner he outjumped the keeper but headed over. A couple of minutes later he was left free at the far post but headed wide.

The first goal came in the 44th minute, when Chen Rui Chieh beat the NTUS keeper to a lovely curling cross from the left,  and although the ball looked to be going in, Kouame tapped in to make sure.

Tatung took off the ineffective Ouedrago off at half time, and straight from the restart NTUS had a good chance when a sliding forward was unable to make contact to a low cross into 6 yard box .

The game then lost any semblance of structure with non-stop end to end attacking football. On 49 minutes Samuel ( Kouame ) beat two defenders and on the run and sent a left footed reverse shot across goal into corner for 2-0.

Three minutes later Samuel hit the bar from 2 yards out and moments later NTUS pulled one back when a Tatung defender’s mishit clearance went straight to number 11, PY Chen, who volleyed home nicely from 8 yards..

NTUS then had two chances saved before Samuel turned in the 6 yard box but steered his shot wide. Chang Hao-wei blazed over from a good position for Tatung before HW Chen for NTUS nipped past the Tatung keeper but was forced wide and saw his shot from a narrow angle blocked by the post by Galo.

The turning point came when Tatung brought on Hareda, who is Japanese, and was too pacey for the tiring defence. After Samuel’s great dummy beat two defenders and his hurried shot went wide, Hareda ran at the defence, beat two NTUS defenders before sliding the ball past the keeper. Two minutes later from a though pass from Samuel, Hareda stepped inside a defender to fire home a left footed shot. 4-1

NTUS fell apart in the final 20 minutes and it could have been a cricket score. Chen Rui Chieh hit the bar, another good chance was deflected for a corner and Samuel forced a good save from the NTUS keeper.

A goal did eventually come when a long ball found Samuel unmarked and a left footed shot from edge of area gave him his hat-trick. There was a VAR check for offside, Taiwan was apparently the first country in Asia to introduce this technology !

The commentators thought NTUS keeper SJ Tian is a future international, which might be saying a lot about standard of goal-keeping there ! Whilst he made a few good saves and looked a reasonable shot-stopper, he looked weak in the air and seem unsure when to come off or stay on his line.

Also, for NTUS, PY Chen and number 9 HW Chen both looked promising but the side looked weak defensively.

For Tatung Samuel/Kouame looked a class apart and he could well be the league’s top scorer this season. Number 33, Pai Shao Yu, has brightly died hair as often seen on Korean or Japanese players and number 6, Taiwan international Chen Rui Chieh looked lively throughout.

In summary, it was an entertaining match to watch and the English commentary was good and informative. In trying to judge the standard of football on show, whilst there was a lot of skill, I would expect a team from Belarus to win quite comfortably against a Taiwanese side as they would simply be too big and too physical.