by Dez Corkhill
Football is a team game.
Without a solid central defender, a goalkeeper can be exposed.
Without the front men doing defensive work a midfield can be over-run.
If the full-backs fail to track their players then holes can appear all over the defensive line.
If the wide players don’t create chances for star strikers then the team as a whole will struggle.
A team truly is only as good as its weakest link. It’s not usually reasonable to pick out one player from a group of 11 (of 16 as is the modern case) for special attention. But, to this observer, one KL City player in this Covid-affected 2021 season deserves to be the exception to this rule. Paulo Josue.
THRIVING IN A CUT-THROAT BUSINESS
Few foreign players survive 5 seasons in the ruthlessly quick-turnover environment that is Malaysian football. Fewer still survive 5-seasons with the same club. Even less are given the chance to captain their adopted team. And you can count on one hand those foreign players who have made 100+ appearances for a single club.
Born and raised in the picturesque Southern Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, Paulo Josue Sturmer dos Reis was spotted by the Juventude Club and made his debut for them in the 2011 season. Luckily for Kuala Lumpur, the left-footed midfield schemer couldn’t establish a regular starting slot at Juventude, and spent the next 5-seasons establishing a decent reputation in the ultra-competitive Brazilian State Leagues before landing at Votuporanguense in the Paulista league.
MAKING A MARK A LONG WAY FROM HOME
Then Paulo turned his sights abroad and was signed by Kuala Lumpur’s then Brazilian Coach, Fabio Magrao, midway through the 2017 season as a replacement for Modibo Konte with the brief of supplying the chances for the prolific Guilherme de Paula. 9 matches, 7 wins and 6 goals later, Paulo had helped Kuala Lumpur to their first League title (2nd Division/ Premier League) since the 1980’s.
After that introductory promotion season Paulo’s KL career suffered highs and lows. There was a consolidation campaign 2018, followed by a disastrous relegation featuring just 4 wins. Josue, though, was largely exempt from criticism in that season being one of the few players who kept their reputations intact.
That in itself was a success of sort as the default state of affairs in Malaysia if a team isn’t winning is for the main scapegoat to be “the imports”. So, to survive 5 seasons, and to rack-up over 100 appearances for your adopted club, and score at a rate of nearly a goal every three games from midfield deserves recognition.
BEST SEASON TO DATE
KL City’s 32-year-old talisman has not only stayed the course, but is currently engaged in his best and most productive full season with the club.
An elegant left-footed midfielder Josue’s main role is to create chances with that exquisite left foot of his. When Guilherme de Paula was in the team there was an obvious focal point, but in 2021, KL City have suffered from season ending injuries to key strikers Dominique da Sylva and Kyrian Nwabueze. While Romel Morales has manfully tried to adapt to that striking role the absence of a proven goalscorer meant that “someone” had to step up. That man was Josue.
His tally of 9 goals from 15 games doesn’t actually tell the whole story. It could – maybe should- have been even more. He was denied by Syihan’s brilliant penalty save last week against PJ City, and had what seemed a perfectly placed free-kick chalked off in the previous match at Sabah. Josue has averaged over three shots a game during the season and has brought the very best out of a host of goalkeepers.
LEADING FROM THE FRONT
In a KL City team that has been cruelly shorn of a specialist target-man no. 9, Josue’s thrust as an attacking no. 10 has been central to the team’s respectable league record for the year and he has contributed a remarkable 40% of KL City’s goals output.
And those goals have been of a real variety. Three trademark left footed specials from outside the penalty are including two stunning 25-yard free-kicks; 2 cool first time finishes (one left foot, one right) from inside the penalty area; two tap-ins from inside the 6-yard box and one from the penalty spot. As captain, he has led by example and has a mild-mannered way about him which seems to elicit a good response from his team-mates.
It goes against a rule to single one player out for special praise, but I am more than happy to make an exception in praise of Paulo Josue.
–Ends–