How come Singapore not inside Asian Cup 2007 (soccer) ?

Master -_- SG

Laughing

Malaysia inside...Thailand inside...Singapore leh? ASEAN Cup winners wor

the Bear SG

they forgot to enter?

Master -_- SG

Laughing

they gave chance to the rest la

the Bear SG

maybe they gave the James Gomez the entry forms? Laughing

or or.. maybe.. they think the S-League bigger than the Asian Cup? Razz

CoolMyth SG

Clashed with S-League what. Laughing

crazy monkey SG

got qualifier or something rite ? i think they kenna knock out

red_amoeba SG

pls lah…you think our soccer skills so good meh? So what if they win the SEA cup? Remember they went thru due to a contraversal goal and besides the match where they wallop Laos (the beating boys), their performance against other teams are so so – on home ground some more.

hisoka SG

the team not singaporean enough?

crazy monkey SG

singapore soccer team just a waste of $$ so spend the $$ on other sports instead.

stellazio SG

Profits not as high as the S-League. Laughing

Jaeyoon SG

I'm so surprised that you guys have no knowledge of what your national team has been doing.

They went through the Asian Cup qualifier but were knocked out by china and Iraq. Singapore is no match for them in their qualifying group.

And before the qualifying began 3 years ago, the FAS was offered the chance to be one of the co-hosts, together with Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia, but they refused because they thought that the National Stadium would be torn down in 2007, thus giving the chance to Indonesia instead. But now, can you see it being torn down? The project is delayed to the end of 2007. See what a waste. Instead of proudly hosting the Asian Cup, they're losing to Australia to commemorate the closing of the stadium.

If Singapore play host, Singapore would have been in Group D, where Korea, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain would have been stationed here instead. Especially Korea, when we have some 15,000 koreans living and working in Singapore, there will be strong support and more tourists would have come too, especially it's summer holiday now.

I think it's such a waste that the Sports council and the Football Association of Singapore have never thought about it. Or rather, sorry, no offense to Singapore, the FAS is afraid of losing (kiasu) because they know that Singapore can't match Saudi Arabia and Korea and has a higher chance to lose out to Bahrain as well. Like someone told me before that Singapore only like winners, not losers. So they know they will high likely to lose to the top teams, so they refuse to play host to the Asian Cup.

And your media covers up all these and never seem to report on the Asian Cup. That's why maybe Singaporeans do not know much about it, thinking that Singapore doesn't want to take part instead of failure to qualify. Whereas other countries in Asia are waiting and looking forward to the start of the tournament, which is on equal standing with that of UEFA's European Championship or South America's Copa America.

I think it's just plain ignorant or stupid to just claim to be the best in ASEAN, where the real challenge only comes from teams like Thailand or Vietnam, or to a lesser extend, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. Claiming to be a strong team only by the FAS themselves and the local press like the Straits Times after beating the amateur like Laos that mainly made up of students, postmen and policemen.

I guess many people have have forgotten how Singapore got trashed by the likes China, Iran and Korea in the past. Those days, you could often see Singapore play those big boys and dared to challenge them despite most of the time, losing by more than 3-goal margin. I would say that;s more brave to face the challenge. Nowadays, the FAS is trying ways to avoid facing those teams by refusing to take part in Asian Games, where the U-23 players participate, not taking the qualifying of the Asian Cup too seriously knowing that they will lose for sure but focus only on the Tiger/ASEAN Cup. You'll only be staying within the ASEAN circle.

I believe many people forgot how Singapore was trashed by China 5-1 and 4-0 in 2 games and trashed by Korea 3-0, 3-0 and 7-0 in 3 games before. Despite having the likes of Fandi Ahmad, Sundram Murthy, Malek Awab and guys, they lost by this type of scoreline. The whole team hardly get past the midfield line when facing those top boys. Maybe because of this reason, the FAS began to avoid meeting these teams anymore. Thus you don't see them invite these teams to play in the National Stadium much in the past 6 to 7 years.

To improve, the FAS can't avoid facing them, you have to play more of those types of games to close the gap.

So far, in ASEAN, you can see that only Thailand dares to challenge despite sometimes losing to them by 3 to 4 goal margins. In their annual Kings Cup, that's a good chance to test players and experiment the team. They even face teams like Denmark and Brazil.

Putting in 5 foreigners in the best 11 is not a long term solution too. They just might be able to strengthen the defense, reducing the number of goals conceded but overall, it's not able to come on par with Asia's best teams.

I think the responsibility lies with the FAS and the Sports Council. It's their fault but refuse to admit and improve their job.

stellazio SG

No use, even if the FAS willing to invest on football in Singapore, it won't yield much results.

Because you can't survive in Singapore just by playing football. The mentality is inside every youths head. So they won't spend as much time training but will instead focus on their education or other stuff.

And also, 90% of the parents will tell their kids to take football as a leisure cca kinda thing rather then go professional. Laughing

Jaeyoon SG

Let's discuss Asian Cup 2007 in another thread

http://www.sgforums.com/?action=thread_display&thread_id=263912

Dead_Man_Inc SG

because we are not the host Laughing

de_middle SG

Laughing

Master -_- SG

i have a feeling european minnows like San Marino etc are like 2x better than Singapore in soccer Laughing

LazerLordz SG

What a load of defeatism I hear here.

SumOne SG

Thanks for your words, always good to have a clearer perspective. Some of the things you have said a re quite true and is what a few of my friends have talked about.

It's true, Singaporeans only support our soccer team when it's winning. Straits Times even ran a joke on it many years ago during the Malaysia Cup period. In fact, from my memory, I only remember support for the Singapore team being highest when Singapore was doing well in Malaysia Cup. The two back to back finals against Kedah and Pahang. They lost 0-2 to Kedah and won Pahang 4-0.

What you say it quite true, Singaporeans probably would have less interest if they continually lose. Or maybe that's just Singaporeans now. I went for a match at the National Stadium between Singapore and Korea a long time ago. Can't remember if it was a World Cup qualification or something. Singapore team lost but the stadium was full Singaporeans were cheering all round. It's not like that nowadays though.

Regarding the hosting issue, in all fairness, maybe it was an oversight regarding the tearing down of the National Stadium. If you can't confirm you have the stadium or facilities to host, it wouldn't be very wise to make a bid. At most a planning mistake but I don't think it was to avoid defeat or anything like that.

About Singapore winning in Asean, well, it's no easy feat to win any Cup Competition, and you do need a bit of luck sometimes to even get to the final. You are kind of belittling the competition with some of the things you say. I think credit still should go to the current Singapore team to take their chances, they are not undeserving winners in any sense. To come from 1-0 down to draw the match in a hostile Thai enviroment is by no means any easy feat. Add to that the small number of supporters who actually went for the match. Credit should be given where it's due.

I agree that putting foreigners may not be a long-term solution, but you got to examine the alternative. To use home grown talent. But that solution is pretty hard to take up as well, not only does Singapore have a small population, as another has mentioned, there is the mindset as well. It's instilled in the mindsets of all our youths that soccer does not work out for a living. So if the locals are not willing to do the job, you gotta import talent. Kind of how businesses work.

I wouldn't say all the fault lies with FAS, but probably a lot has to be done to change the mindset of the people here.

nanren4ever SG

The ironic thing is people still want us to be back in the Malaysia Cup days when

i)the standards of the teams in the M League have dropped.
ii)it was probably the main cause of Spore football decline in the late 80s-90s.

How have we improved internationally when we play against the Malaysia teams year in year out? I would say that the S-League has make the national team stronger instead.

How has the Malaysia Cup benefit us internationally, except that it probably made us and many Malaysia states richer due to the attendance? 2 years after we formed our own league, we won the Tiger Cup. We won again in 2004, and retain this year after it renamed as the ASEAN Football Championship. That's 3 times, and only Thailand have won it as many times as us.

I know we are not Asia Top 5 material yet, but give the team a little more time, idolise the EPL a bit lesser and stop comparing their league with ours, and maybe some of us can find it in our hearts to support the Lions through rain or shine, rather than when we are basking in glory.

CKeer SG

Simply put - They are not good enough.

Cheers.
CK