Asean Football Championship 2007
From lions to stray cats
The game yesterday between Singapore and Indonesia, was a slightly
disappointing one, even though Singapore tops the table and
qualified for the semis. After the Laos game, Alam Shah stated that
he felt sorry for Laos and did not want to score, so many goals. I
wonder if he was thinking the same thing during the match against
Indonesia, last night. The match had its fair share of jokes, at
one point during the game, Indonesia fielded a 12 men team, and it
took the referee sometime to notice that error.
The final score for the match was 2-2. The goals scored by
Indonesia were all preventable, if only the defenders were more
vigilant. Indonesia was playing intelligently frustrating
Singapore, after they scored the equalizer during the 1st half of
the game, by passing around the ball amongst themselves. The
condition of the field was slightly damp because of the drizzling
rain during the first 15 minutes, of kick off. I often find myself
asking, are the foreign talent players in the Singapore team, of
the same standard or a lower standard, then the players who were
born and raised in Singapore.
Maybe the FAS should look into foreign talents that are better than
our local players, and not of the same level or even lower. During
the second half of the match, after Indonesia scored their second
goal, Singapore started defending all the way, till the full time
whistle was blown. That reminded of the World Cup game between
Trinidad and England. The Singapore players seemed to have lost
their passion for the game when they argued amongst themselves,
each time Indonesia came back from a goal down.
The condition of the field did not help either. The game ended with
the 20,000 crowd, at the National stadium feeling a little
disappointed, that Singapore was not capable of keeping their lead.
Mr. Ho from the FAS, once questioned the passion of the fans, what
needs to be questioned is the passion of the players.