By Les Tan/Red Sports
Video copyright of World Sport Group
Hanoi, Thursday, December 2, 2010 — Singapore were moments away from a first group win when they conceded a late equaliser to Philippines to share the spoils in a 1-1 draw at the ASEAN Football Championship (AFF Suzuki Cup).
A 64th-minute goal by Aleksandar Duric finally got the Lions on the scoresheet. Alam Shah was initially put through on goal but his first touch saw the ball drift away towards the byeline. However, courtesy of a lucky deflection, his cross found a lurking Duric who guided his header past the impressive Neil Etheridge in the Filipino goal.
The goal came as a relief for the team, after Noh Alam Shah had missed three good one-on-one chances in a first half that saw the Singapore team have the greater possession as the Philippines were content to just sit back and soak up Singapore’s attacks.
Duric then had an excellent chance to double Singapore’s lead five minutes from the end. Teammate Shahril Ishak dribbled his way through but his initial shot was blocked. The ball fell to Duric but his instinctive shot in the 6-yard box was blocked by defender Rob Gier, leaving Duric holding his head in disbelief.
However, the Philippines team, with eight foreign-born players of Filipino extraction, came back to score a sucker punch of a goal in the 93rd minute with their only serious attack of the half. A cross in from the left from British-Filipino James Younghusband just outside the penalty box went past three static Singapore defenders and Chris Greatwich, another Brit of Filipino parentage, was on hand to smash it home past Hassan Sunny without any defender troubling him.
At full time, the Filipino squad celebrated with great delight while the Lions looked stunned. To make matters worse, Mustafic Fahrudin, who played his usual dependable game in midfield, was taken off injured, a worry since the squad is already without John Wilkinson and Shi Jiayi.
“Congratulations to the Philippines because they fought for 90 minutes and took two points away from us,” said Singapore head coach Raddy Avramovic on the affsuzukicup.com website.
“It was a game of many missed chances and the last three minutes were because we were unable to finish the game professionally. I’m just disappointed that we didn’t take half of the chances we created. It was a total loss of concentration and form in front of goal.
“There were many situations were players were in position to go for a shot but took extra touches and we were punished for that. We were leading 1-0 after a hard first half and opening to the second half; we have thrown away all our hard work in the last two minutes,” said Raddy.
Philippine coach McMenemy had good things to say about his team.
“We just worked on trying to make ourselves very difficult to beat because we know we always carry the threat,” said the 32-year-old Englishman according to affsuzukicup.com.
“We worked very hard to keep our shape, to keep our discipline. We got lucky with a couple of minutes to go. The passion these boys have shown is just unbelievable. The fact that we were able to match Singapore speaks a lot about the work we’ve done. It was a really good team performance.
“We’ll be enjoying this one because this was by no means an easy game. We deserve this result but it’s going to be difficult from here,” added McMenemy.
Singapore will next face Myanmar on Sunday for their second Group B game.
Singapore Lineup
Hassan Sunny (GK); Noh Rahman, Baihakki Khaizan, Daniel Bennett, Juma’at Jantan; Shahril Ishak, Shahdan Sulaiman, Mustafic Fahrudin (Isa Halim 88′), Fazrul Nawaz (Md Ridhuan 47′); Aleksandar Duric, Noh Alam Shah (Khairul Amri 68′)
Yellow cards: Isa Halim, Noh Rahman, Shahdan Sulaiman, Alam Shah
Philippines Lineup
Neil Etheridge, Robert Gier, Anton Del Rosario, James Younghusband, Alexander Borromeo, Emelio Caligdong (Roel Gener 83′), Jason De Jong, Chris Greatwich, Ian Araneta (Joebel Bermejo 78′), Ray Jonsson, Phil Younghusband
Yellow cards: James Younghusband, Chris Greatwich, Ian Araneta
| COUNTRY | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIETNAM | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 3 | +5 | 6 |
| PHILIPPINES | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| SINGAPORE | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
| MYANMAR | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 | -7 | 1 |
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accept the fact that the powerhouse team in basketball in south east asia,and in asia..(the philippine team)are battle for the best in football..no argue for the players of PH TEAM..because these 8 guys are HALF FILIPINO……
great article, im pinoy and i have no [problem witht thhe word extraction…as far as im concerned i do not know what the big deal is all about indonesia does the same thing, singapore has duric (who obviously has no singaporean blood at all) att least the fil foriegners have filipino blood – so it snot as if the phil team went shopping in europe for players willy nilly
i agree with some of my compatriots here, on some aspect. i appreciate the word extraction as it helps me enrich my vocabulary. but to point out that PH has 8 foreign born players seems unnecessary considering the fact that you did not even give a damn about the 3 foreign players (as in foreign not foreign born). i hope next time be sensitive enough with what you are writing. as you are not writing for yourself but for the readers, so please consider your reader before putting into words your thoughts. thanks
Most readers here are familiar with the fact that Singapore have had foreign born players since 2004.
Readers are less familiar with that same fact for Filipino football teams.
Also, it is not too difficult to tell that “Fahrudin”, “Duric” and “Bennett” are not your usual Singaporean surnames.
Bennett was born in Singapore to English parents actually.
@redsports, guys please, use words that are a lot more simple.
how about using “lineage” instead of “extraction”? It sounds a lot better.
Fil-foreign or pure pinoy doesnt matter as long as we bring glory to PH flag. So surprise PH got the draw from SG! but still very happy with the result. many pinoy football fans consider SG as football powerhouse in SEA. Hope PH can pull more upset.
today’s local sports news in the Philippines, our draw against your Lions is a mere footnote of yesterday’s sporting events behind basketball, boxing, junior tennis, and cycling… it’s right down there with college volleyball.
http://www.inquirer.net/sports/sports-news-philippines.html
while i’m quite happy for the result (since i was expecting our team to lose by 3 goals), i wish this had gotten more attention. only the futbol die-hards know about this result, the soccer bandwagoners probably know who’s hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups but don’t know their own team got a great result against a team that normally beats us.
A small number is aware of this football competition in the Philippines. Yes, this is true only die-hard football fans are looking into this. I was able to watch the game and happy that Philippines scored in the last minute. That was a great goal action in fact.
Lets put it down to opening match inertia. Its just like a new car. You need to let the engine run. Philipines now are a better lot than Philipines of the past but still technically immature and tactically naive.But they played with heart and a “nothing-to-lose” attitude. With a couple of players who can hold the ball and are nippy dribblers like the Younghusband brothers,they are hard to play against.However, if Singapore had scored earlier and had not missed their chances,it could have been a thrashing on the Filipinos.
I believe the team will regroup and play better against Myanmar.
Les tan, how many naturalized footballers currently playing for SG Lions? i mean those with no singaporean blood at all.
Thanks to our large Filipino Community in
England and the rest of Europe, coz they supply our national team with good players hehe.
How many? 3, tonight.
Nice to have a large scattered community abroad. There are certain benefits, as we saw tonight.
Congratulations to the Philippines.
I’m more angry than embarassed. Singapore Lions are hopeless. We can’t even beat a basketballing nation on foot. We lost three domestic league titles to foreign teams with dwindling attendance. An aging team, a lethargic display, a tactless strategy. This is the beginning of the end. The only possible silver lining is re-joining the Malaysian League / Cup to raise the footballing standards with Malaysians who are licking wounds after a 5-1 thrashing by Indonesia.
just want to comment on the article on the way the writer describes the Fil-foreign players of the PH.
i wonder where the writer gets the, “extraction” word.
it doesn’t sound right to me to describe such to a person. maybe the writer is just upset of the last minute goal from PH that’s why choice of words is affected…
and FYI, these Foreign-born PH players has either or both Filipino father or mother..its not extraction…
The word “extraction” is defined in the dictionary as “the ethnic origin of someone’s family”.
It is not a derogatory word and so please don’t imply otherwise.
yah right…
can you mention also in your report how many foreigners are there in SG line-up without even any SG lineage? hmmm…
Since you doubt what I say, you can go and see the definition of “extraction” for yourself at the following link:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0282470#m_en_gb0282470
The Singapore national squad has players who are not born in Singapore. It is a fact most Singaporeans are already acquainted with on this site.
For the record, out of the starting lineup, Daniel Bennett, Mustafic Fahrudin and Aleksandar Duric are not Singapore born.
whatever!!!
Phil tied Spore with a late goal…a shocker for Spore…huhuhu..
Yes, I did put that point in the report above. Hope you are able to read that too.
I see you concede the point about the word “extraction”, boy.
Love the word “whatever”. It usually means “let’s change the subject cos I was wrong”.
not really…choice of words and the way the report is written there is some bitterness…huhuhu..
You very sensitive, ah? Also you cannot read properly. LOL
The fella writes something and you see all sorts of ghosts in there.
Wasted Singapore don’t have people all over the place who are half or one quarter Singaporean, then can give them passport. Chop, chop.
Singapore need more foreign talent like Philippines.
Quarrelsome boy you are.
i agree with you…well, at least Philippines would only get Fil-foreign players, “extraction” as what the writer would call it, and not “buy” players from China (e.g. table tennis) or Indonesia (badminton). Philippines would even struggle to have even just 1 basketball player’s naturalization approved by congress, senate and the president, as they would prefer Filipinos or at least with a Filipino parent/lineage to play for the country.