Contributed by Isaac Christian

Male, Thursday, August 12, 2010 — The Singapore Under-23 football team fell to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of their Maldives counterparts in an evenly contested affair at the Male National Stadium. A well taken free kick by Abdullah Asadullah in the dying minutes of the first half was suffice to see the home side grab the win.

Despite dominating most of the second half, the Lions were unable to find the all important equaliser. Coach V. Sundram Moorthy remains upbeat of his side’s chances and is looking forward when the two sides face off again on August 13 for their second encounter.

“We created some good opportunities but we will need to work on taking our chances in the next match. I’m happy with level of commitment from the boys and I’m looking forward playing them again tomorrow. Overall, I feel the boys have done well, considering some of them are playing for the first time this season. The purpose of this tour was to give the boys international match exposure and I believe they have greatly benefited from this training tour so far.” said Sundram.

Singapore played without seven key Under-23 players who were called up to the senior squad last week, giving the trio of Siddiq Durimi, Syazwan Buhari and Fazly Hasan their first ever appearance with the Singapore Under-23 team.

Match Result:
Maldives Under-23 – 1
(Abdullah Asadullah 45’)

Singapore Under-23 – 0

Singapore Under-23
Siddiq Durimi (Syazwan Buhari 46’), Fazly Hasan (Shakir Hamzah 62’), Shahir Hamzah, Eddie Affendy Chang, Madhu Mohana (Faritz Abdul Hameed 72’), Gabriel Quak (Eugene Luo 67’), Hafiz Abu Sujad (C), Yasir Hanapi (Syafiq Zainal 77’), Fadhil Noh, Rizawan Abdullah (Fazli Ayob 53’ ), Khairul Nizam (Khalili D’Cruz 65’)