By Les Tan/Red Sports. Photos by Lim Weixiang/Red Sports

singapore vs philippines football friendly

Aleksandar Duric wheels away to celebrate after scoring Singapore’s second goal. (Photo 1 © Lim Weixiang/Red Sports)

Jalan Besar Stadium, Friday, October 8, 2011 — Singapore beat the Philippines 2-0 in an international friendly in front of a 6,000 crowd that was mostly Filipino. The teams had drawn 1-1 when they last met in the 2011 ASEAN Football Championship. Singapore had then failed to make it past the group stage while the Philippines qualified for the semi-finals.

Shaiful Esah and Aleksandar Duric found the net for the Lions in a game that also saw the return of midfielder Hariss Harun who missed the last two World Cup qualifiers because of National Service commitments.

The Lions have a do-or-die World Cup home qualifier against Jordan on Tuesday, October 11th. Having lost their last two qualifiers against China and Iraq, Singapore need to beat Jordan to keep their qualifying hopes alive.

However, on this performance, they will need to do better against Jordan. Apart from a Shi Jiayi long-range effort in the 34th minute and a missed header by Aleksandar Duric from close range, the Lions struggled to create chances in the first half.

The win was also marred by the loss of Safuwan Baharudin to injury and the central defender looks set to miss the game against Jordan. Hariss took Safuwan’s place in defence and Noh Rahman was sent on to plug the gap in midfield.

The Lions could find no way through the Filipino defence in the first half and head coach Raddy Avramovic made changes at half time with the score tied at 0-0.

Shaiful Esah finally got the scoring going with a deflected shot that found the back of the net in the 51st minute. The Filipinos came back with two quick attempts but goalie Izwan Mahbud, who came on for Lionel Lewis, saved brilliantly.

Aleksandar Duric then made it 2-0 in the 61st minute after a defence splitting pass from substitute Shahdan Sulaiman.

“I looked at this game as continuity from the two excellent matches against Malaysia, and I hoped that in this game, they will give us more confidence and belief in ourselves for the match against Jordan,” said coach Avramovic.

“It is always difficult when you try to make some changes. In the first half, our attacks were cut from midfield and we couldn’t keep possession in the opponent’s half. And when you can’t do that, you cannot create chances, we then changed the positions of a few players during the break, and the team looked a lot better.”

Filipino coach Hans Weiss praised his players for their effort.

He added “They were tired and jet-lagged but they played well despite that fact. We were compact in the first half and played quite ok.”

“I warned my players of Singapore’s set pieces as they have a few variations and we were punished by Singapore’s No.3 Shaiful Esah. But we had a couple of chances in the second half but it was not enough.”

“Singapore and Thailand are considered the best teams in the South East Asian region and we need more of such games to grow and become better. With time, we will only get stronger.”

Final Result
Singapore 2 Philippines 0

Goalscorers: Shaiful Esah 51’, Aleksandar Duric 65’

Singapore Starting Lineup
Lionel Lewis (Izwan Mahbud 45’), Safuwan Baharudin (Noh Rahman 45+3’), Shaiful Esah (Delwinder Singh 90+1’), Isa Halim (Hafiz Rahim 76’), Shi Jiayi, Aleksandar Duric, Fazrul Nawaz (Shahdan Sulaiman 54’), Hariss Harun, Daniel Bennett, Shahril Ishak (C), Juma’at Jantan

Philippines Starting Lineup
Neil Etheridge, James Younghusband, Dennis Cagara, Philip Younghusband, Alexander Borromeo (C), Angel Guirado (Ian Araneta 28’(Nathaniel Burkey 65’), Emelio Caligdong, Paul Mulders, Jerry Lucena, Jason De Jong, Ray Jonsson (Misagh Bahadoran 87’)

singapore vs philippines football friendly

This was a home game for the Singapore Lions but the game was played in front of a full capacity crowd that was mostly Filipino. (Photo 2 © Lim Weixiang/Red Sports)

Go to next page for more photos