Doha 'misadventure' claims refuted

mcfadden SG

FAS Chief of National Teams P. Sivakumar has rejected claims that Singapores involvement in the Doha Asian Games mens football event could be considered a misadventure.

His comments came last Friday after the Lions were eliminated from the Asian Games tournament following their 1-1 draw against Indonesia.

Local media generally viewed with disappointment Singapores performance in the event, in which the team had taken part for the first time since the Beijing Asian Games in 1990.

Sivakumar emphasized, however, that the Lions participation in the tournament had nonetheless given Singapore football significant benefits in terms of preparing the team for various major international competitions coming up in the next two years.

Our participation in the Doha Asian Games was not so much an adventure, much less a misadventure, he said in reviewing the teams achievements.

This is part and parcel of our learning and development process to build a strong national team. When you look at all the building blocks we have put in place, the young talents are coming up, and we need to expose them with an eye to future competitions.

Quite a number of our boys like Jeremy (Chiang), Shaiful (Esah) and (Khairul) Amri are going to participate in the Olympic qualifiers next year. There is also the ASEAN Football Championship next January, as well as the World Cup qualifiers starting in 2008.

We are very grateful to the Singapore National Olympic Council and everyone who supported us for the opportunity to play in the Asian Games. It has hardened our guys and accelerated their development in preparation for these assignments.

Singapores early exit from the tournament came after they had played three tough games in Round One, which eventually saw them placing behind Athens Olympics semifinalists Iraq and highly-rated Middle Eastern prodigies Syria.

The Lions surprised many with a goalless draw against Syria in the first qualifying game, before falling 0-2 to Iraq and ending their campaign with a 1-1 draw against Indonesia.

Despite collecting just two points out of nine, Singapore performed admirably with their enterprising attacking play, rarely finding themselves on the back foot throughout.

This, in Sivakumars view, was a significant improvement over the teams performance in previous years, and proved that Singapore cannot be seen as whipping boys in Asia.

We played three good games against good opposition like Syria, whose Doha team was basically their entire national team, noted the 43-year-old.

This was the same team that had drawn 1-1 with Korea Republic in the Asian Cup qualifiers. Yet we created enough chances to bury them by at least four goals, and had we done that, everyone would say, Wow, what a fantastic team!

While Iraq was a much better team than us, as can be seen by the way they play, we lost only due to two defensive errors. In fact, we now have players creating opportunities to win games, rather than always being pegged back and going on the defensive.

If we look past the results, the Asian Games have shown us that Singapore, with our limited resources, can still realistically compete with Iraq. We are no longer easy to beat, and we are creating the chances; these are important steps forward from years gone by.

Despite creating numerous scoring opportunities throughout the tournament, the Lions were ultimately undone by their inability to convert them and secure victory.

Ashrin Shariff scored Singapores only goal in the campaign from the penalty spot, while Amri and Fazrul Nawaz, the teams other two recognized strikers, fired blanks.

The teams collective lack of composure in front of goal was a source of puzzlement and frustration for national coach Radojko Avramovic, who was quoted in newspapers as saying that the situation had stopped being funny.

His sentiments were echoed by Sivakumar, who also stressed that the shortage of strike options posed a challenge to anyone who harbours ambitions to fill the void for the national team in years to come.

Unfortunately, the main letdown in this competition was the finishing, he conceded.

Everyone has acknowledged that, including our strikers who were chiefly responsible for the misses there. But aside from the three we had, and the two injured seniors Indra (Sahdan) and (Noh) Alam Shah do we have anyone else who can play for Singapore?

That I cannot think of any also challenges any aspiring strikers we havent noticed to work harder and prove their worth. They must be ready to deal with the steep learning curve in international football.

Guys like Amri who have been there now know they have to be sharper and more patient in front of goal at international level. Things like these, you cant teach unless you let them play in high-quality competitive matches.

While Singapores quest to reach the Asian Games quarterfinals did not end on a glorious note, Sivakumar was in no doubt that the team should continue to participate in the event.

He emphasized the intrinsic value in terms of both development and competition from participation in such major international tournaments.

Stressing the importance such expeditions play in building a strong national team for the future, Sivakumar argued that short-term aspirations for regional dominance cannot come at the exclusion of the longer and wider view of making Singapore a credible force in Asia.

Every time we miss an opportunity to play at the highest level, it will set us back, definitely, he said.

This is where our young boys get their much-needed international exposure. Lets not forget that we are going to have a very young national team for the next five to eight years, and the young boys we have now are going to be mainstays in it.

Are we going to shoot ourselves in the foot by not exposing these players to such competitions? In a way its a rhetorical question; definitely we should participate.

Did we humiliate ourselves in this Asian Games? Were we pegged back and always needing our goalkeepers to bail us out? If we never had opportunities like this to test ourselves, we never could have known the answer to those questions was no.

We have to look long-term, and we have to give our young players every possible opportunity to play on the international stage, he concluded.

That is what will give them the needed composure and experience when they move on to the senior team. From both the developmental and competitive points of view, I am sure this Asian Games experience we have gained will push us to the next level.