2010 Fifa World Cup Asian Zone Qualifier (3rd round)

Ok, here's the 1st post of Local football.

After so many rounds of talking about "LAST MATCH" @ the National Stadium (since 2005) and with no EPL on a saturday nite, a few of my colleagues n Bernard headed to Kallang for this match between Singapore (plus some foreign talents) vs Saudi Arabia.

Singapore started well and on the 3rd minute of play, they were presented with an golden opportunity. The Saudi defence couldn't clear the ball and 2 Singapore players, lurking near the last man were left facing the Saudi keeper. Khairul Amri clearly can pass to his teammate for a simple tap in, chose to shoot instead. His weak shot was palmed away by the Saudi keeper. Almost 22,500 fans (minus the Saudi fans & me) had already lifted their bums, hands in the air, shouting GOAL and they can't believe the Lions had missed. He was substituted at halftime.

Nothing much had change with the Lion's style of play, slow in attack, no support from the midfield (can see some players relax jogging to join the attack), players don't know how to run into space (to get the ball or to pull the defender with him to open up the defence for the attackers or midfielders), slow in counter attack when free kick is in our favour, must wait till Saudi ran back to defence then kick the ball... WTF.

Even this Saudi also commented that we Singapore should not concentrate so much on nationalized expired players.
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/newsid=802013.html#saudi+arabia+march

Do the Lions have initiatives or Singapore coach Raddy Avramovic tactics wrong?? Instead of shouting instructions at the touch line, he spent more time warming the bench. Maybe he knows that his job is safe even if Singapore couldn't qualify.

Singapore no. 6, Precious Emuejeraye was our entertainer for the night, his big body frame and his style of running was just like Kung Fu Panda.. Remember when he was chasing a ball during the second half, section of the fans (I started) shouted "Run, Run, Run... The way he ran is so funny! He even use his bum to block the ball.

My Man of The Match was no. 1 Hassan Sunny. Saved few shots from the Saudi.

Weakest link was no. 16 Daniel Bennett.

Maybe I watched too much EPL, their standard and Local standard are miles apart.

Maybe we play in Malaysia Cup better, at least we shout BU-TOK or Referee Kayu, still got players understand what are we shouting for. No point we shout & shout to visiting teams and they don't even understand what's that!

Nice try Team Singapore, maybe try to qualify for AFC Asian Cup first.

P.S. is this really the LAST TIME National Stadium open its door?



East entrance


Saudi Fans


Match ticket. 4 numbers to buy.


My dinner.


Scoreboard