Match: Singapore vs Thailand (AFC Final 2nd
leg)
Time: 8:00pm
Live: Ch5 and official soccer talk
FINAL WHISTLE:
Singapore 1 (3)
81st Khairul Amri
Thailand 1 (2)
37' P Thonkanya
brackets are the results from 1st
leg..
BANGKOK (Feb 3, 2007) - Thailand and Singapore today presented
contrasting styles ahead of their second leg final match of the
Asean Football Championship to be held at the Supachalasai Stadium
here in Bangkok tomorrow.
Singapore won the first leg 2-1 last Wednesday at home in a clash
that was marred by controversy over the award of a penalty to
Singapore by Malaysian referee C. Ravichandran in the 82nd
minute.
The match was tied 1-1 until Mustaphic Fahruddin scored from the
spot.
Today, voluble Thailand team manager Thavatchai Sajakul went up to
the extent of predicting that the match would go to extra-time with
penalty kicks deciding the winner.
Singapore head coach Radojko Avramovic, taciturn in contrast to
Thavatchai, declined predictions, saying that if actual matches
could be scripted in advance, tomorrows may just as well proceed
to the penalty kicks stage.
However, both team spokesmen were in agreement that the match would
be an intense encounter and the controversy that attended the
closing stages of the first leg that saw a 15-minute walkout by the
Thai team would be consigned to oblivion.
Thavatchai, in particular, have sort shrift to speculation that the
negative aspects of the first leg would spill over into the second
leg with the Thai team intent on vengeance and the home crowd keyed
up to give the Singaporeans a hostile reception.
We will give no satisfaction to such speculation, he assured a
local and foreign press contingent that has been expecting a needle
match with tempers at triggers edge.
Our team will play fair and the crowd will be hospitable to the
visitors, said the veteran Thai manager (right in pic).
Thailand has won the biennial competition for Asean nations three
times while Singapore has won it twice.
There has been no other winner of this competition from the nine
other members of Asean since the competition was inaugurated in
1996.
Jimmy Napitupulu of Indonesia has been appointed referee for the
match with assistant referees Muhammad Yunus Suaidi of Indonesia
and Koung Ly of Cambodia.
The fourth official is Nuon Yin Monarath of Cambodia.
Thavatchai said he did not expect iconic Thailand captain Kiatisuk
Senamuang to be fielded but he could not be too certain of
it.
Kiatisuk, popularly called Zico, was not in the Thai team for the
first leg.
Avramovic (left in pic) said the Singapore players knew their Thai
counterparts well from having played them recently in the Kings
Cup in Bangkok in late December and from the presence of Thai
players in the S-League.
They are friends, he said matter-of-factly, dimming speculation
that traces of the first legs bad temper would burden the players
for the second.
