Geylang United's newly-appointed skipper Aide Iskandar has
challenged the Eagles to banish the memories of last season's
disastrous league campaign, as the Bedok team announced their squad
in a media conference at the Jalan Besar Stadium on Monday.
Aide - who led the Singapore national team to their second straight
Asean Football Championships title in February - made the switch to
Geylang in the off-season after spending half of last year at
rivals Tampines Rovers.
And when the 32-year-old defender was asked about his motivations
behind the move, he barely hesitated when the topic veered to the
particularly tough contest between Tampines and Geylang on October
1 last year, which he admitted the Stags "were lucky to win"
1-0.
"Even last year, when everyone said they were struggling, it was
still tough to break them down," he said.
"Tampines found Geylang very hard to beat and when they did score,
it was through a lucky (Santi Chaiyaphuak) goal.
"And when (Lim) Tong Hai took over as coach (in August 2006),
Geylang started improving a lot.
"We shouldn't be dwelling too much on what happened last year. This
is a team with a professional set-up in every sense of the word.
Geylang is a very ambitious club and I am honoured to be playing
for them.
"I believe I can contribute to the team with my experience and my
leadership, which I will share with the rest of the players. If
everyone plays together, we can try and bring the club to where it
was once was."
Aide was referring to the Green Army's proud history going back to
the Premier League preceding the S.League, back in the days when
they were known as Geylang International.
It looked like the mere technicality of a name change to Geylang
United would do little to stop the club's roll as they etched their
name in the history books as the winner of the 1996 Tiger Beer
Series League.
However a barren run since - as far as silverware is concerned -
has had their legions of fans wondering if Geylang would ever reach
those dizzying heights ever again.
Their famed youth academy suffered from losing many of their
starlets - names like Indra Sahdan, Ahmad Latiff Khamaruddin and
Lionel Lewis three notable examples - after only one or two seasons
at the Bedok Stadium, and their senior team fared little
better.
The tide seemed to have turned somewhat in 2003, when they finished
second in the league.
But few expected them to follow that up with a seventh place finish
the following year. At the end of the 2005 season, they were
eighth.
The class of 2006 started off pretty much as a squad in transition
and claimed a few notable scalps to their credit.
But surely a club like Geylang would have not been very pleased
with tenth spot at the end of October.
Head coach Lim Tong Hai has brought in ex-Sengkang hitman Kim
Grant, former Home United forward Fadzuhasny Juraimi and Syed Thaha
(in his second spell at Bedok) in a bid to fix Geylang's goal-shy
attack from last season.
If you like your stats, then you'll love this one.
Geylang in 2006 = 22 goals
Kim Grant + Fadzuhasny Juraimi + Syed Thaha in 2006 = 21
goals
The club has also brought in 32-year-old Dutch-Moroccan Abdelaziz
Dnibi to partner the stylish Rangsan Vivatchaichok in
midfield.
"Everyone else has strengthened their squads for this season, so it
is not getting easier for any of the teams," said Tong Hai. "We've
retained players like Noh Rahman, Razaleigh (Khalik), Hassan
(Sunny) and (Syed) Fadhil but we've also brought in new faces like
Kim, Fadzu, Aziz and Aide.
"We have to be realistic about our chances in the league.
Ultimately we would like to finish higher than we were last season
but we'll take each game as it comes."
Meanwhile, the club's chairman Patrick Ang has ruled out setting
any targets for the upcoming season, saying it's not the Geylang
way.
"If you look at the history books, there've only been four teams
that have won the league, the uniformed groups (SAFFC and Home
United), Tampines and us.
"We're not a team who goes out and say that we're going to win the
championship.
"It's not easy to win the league so we have to be realistic about
it. Our aim firstly is not to finish where we were last year. We
won't concede as many goals as we did last year, for example.
"This season will be a very important season for us, because we'll
have many of our players scheduled to return to the club in 2008.
Players like Baihakki (Khaizan) will come back so I am confident
that we will have much better chance when we have our best players
back."
GEYLANG UNITED SQUAD 2007
Goalkeepers: Hassan Sunny, Fajar Sarib
Defenders: Noh Rahman, Abdul Hadi, Razaleigh
Khalik, Aide Iskandar, Dennis Lim, Jonathan Xu
Midfielders: Syed Fadhil, Razali Johari, Rangsan
Vivatchaichok, Lau Meng Meng, Syed Thaha, Abdelaziz Dnibi
Forwards: Kim Grant, Bae Jin Soo, Hafiz Rahim,
Fadzuhasny Juraimi
