Yes. Singapore was thrashed 4-0 by an under-23 Malaysian side. Do note that Singapore fielded a full international side. Thrashed 4-0.
The thrashing is the result of how Singapore soccer has degenerated ever since we stopped participating in the Malaysian league. Even when we were playing, we had never ever lost at the National Stadium (according to ST? report)
Was Malaysia playing so good? Yes. But it might had been a closer game if Singapore didn’t play as bad as they did tonight.
One word. Disgrace.
Absolutely, totally, a disgrace to the thousands of fans that turned up at the Stadium decked out in the all-red “_lion roar_” tshirt. Fans were queueing outside which, to my surprise, was an even better turn-out than expected. At the end of the game, there was no roar, just whimpers. Several of the red tees were thrown over the railings onto the running track.
The control was missing. The passing almost always went haywire. The defence was in sixes and sevens. Even with our “foreign imports”, the 4 goals were all individual mistakes at our own side of the field. Midfielders were running, no where like headless chickens.
Lastly, the strikers had chances that can be counted using my fingers. Only one shot required saving from the Malaysian custodian. Now I realised why the two foreign imports were the “top scorers” in our so called professional S-League. They had easy defence to overcome. So when they are faced with international defenders, one eventually requested to be left out of the team a few days before the tournament starts.
This lead me to believe that what FAS wanted to do with the S-League had failed miserably.
Singapore is too small to accomodate 12 professional clubs. The first “Mission Statement” of the S-League was:
bq. Towards the Promotion of Football Excellence in Singapore
Since 1996 the S-League started from 8 clubs to now currently 12 clubs. Out of these 12, many are having managerial and finanical crisis. Not one of them has a recognisible youth training program. So in a country with less than 5 million people, where do we get enough quality players to fill 12 clubs?
Citing global financial crisis as an excuse for not getting enough financial support is as it is, an excuse. Improve the standard of playing, you get better crowds. which means you get better ticket returns. You will also get the attention of sponsors. Play like it is now, only people who’ll attend matches are those who have taken the trouble to go to local betting center to make bets to see whether he wins or not.
So we end up with mediocre playing throughout the seasons, and then when the national team come together, the playing standard drops to all time low.
There are too many reasons I can think of which leads to the dismay state of Singapore Soccer. But it will most probably be longer than any essays i’ve written in my life.
All I can say is this:
h6. rethink S-League again.
12 clubs is too many for our country. 6 might be good. Clubs must established a good foundation for youth training and other training facilities and programs that will really “raise the quality of football to fully professional standards”.
I was thinking maybe we can have 4 clubs that play in the Malaysian League. But, well that’s most probably impossible due to logistics and the difficulty in joining back the M-League
h6. reappoint new coaching staff
getting a coach that doubles as a director of singapore’s lame attempt at getting to world cup 2010, is a joke. you can’t wear two big hats on one head. i think we need not look too far for a coach that has the experience and the respect of all local players to succeed.
h6. goal 2010
please. let’s scrap this silly and utterly impossible idea. maybe 2100 perhaps. with how things are now, it will be a surprise if we don’t lose to other teams in SEAsian like Myanmar or even Vietnam.
Argh. I’m too distraught to think about how bad Singapore played just now.
I’m going to sleep.
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