Friday, December 05, 2008
Singapore 5 - 0 Cambodia
How many people would bother spending 90 minutes in front of the tv watching a Singapore versus Cambodia match, even if it's an official tournament like the Suzuki Cup (formerly known as the Asean or Tiger Cup). I did. It's going to be difficult to gather supporters especially if the matches fall on the weekend where EPL matches are playing at the same time. However, I'm sure there are still ardent supporters of Singapore soccer like me around.
It was frustrating to see the Singapore team failing to score despite dominating possession for the entire first half. In fact, there was not a single Cambodia player inside the Singapore half at all! Lionel Lewis can walk to the toilet and come back and not worry about having the oppposition taking shots at his goal. No I'm not joking because they just couldn't string together more than 5 passes. Eventually when they did, they lost it to a Singaporean player or just blantantly blast it into the Singapore half. Some of our goals were pretty scrappy but you have to blame the Cambodia players, they were not out to play soccer at all. It was like having 11 players parking themselves in front of the goal posts. The moment the commentator said "Well done for stringing together 5 passes and they go ont to lose the ball possession". Pity them sometimes.
We went into half time only 1 goal up and it was through some brilliant tactical changes that the floodgates opened. The coach took out 1 defender and replaced him with Noh Alam Shah and that's not something you can often do in international football. Well, there's no point having 2 central defenders when the opposition seldom gets into your half right? It was good scoring the first goal and the subsequent ones because it forced the Cambodians to come out and play football. Simple as that. Here's a funny sight that ran through my mind when I was watching the match. Even though they're wearing nike official jerseys, it looked damn fake. Like those jerseys you'll find at the night market (compare that to the tight-fit climacool-like nike jerseys worn by Singapore players). I guess it boils down to a matter of who Nike values more.
Beating Mynmmar this Sunday evening will mean that we've qualified for the quarter-finals. Then we can concentrate on securing a good result against the dangerous Indonesians. You have to admit that their national stadium is like the homeground of Galatarsaray where chants of "Welcome to Hell" will be heard. However, the Singapore team is well-customed to playing in such intimidating places.
All the best Lions!
