Football World Cup Qualifier: Luckless Lions hopes look bleak

By Koh Yizhe/Red Sports

Jalan Besar Stadium, Tuesday, September 9, 2011 — Qualification for the next round of the 2014 World Cup qualifiers seems unlikely for Raddy Avramovic and his men after they went down 0-2 to Iraq.

It was the second defeat in as many matches for the Lions in the third round of qualification and they are now rooted to the bottom of the table without any points. China, Jordan and Iraq have all managed at least a win.

Second-half goals from Ala’a Abdulzehr and Younis Mahmoud were enough to give all three points to the Iraqis, but the Singapore players definitely felt they could have gotten something from the match if situations had been different or if certain calls went their way.

They were without Hariss Harun who had national service commitments while the Home United duo of Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi were not at 100%. As a result, the Lions lacked aggressiveness and creativity in attack.

On top of that, similar to their first match against China, they also had a clear-cut penalty denied them in the second half.

Despite keeping the score goalless in the first half thanks to a brilliant defensive performance from 19-year-old Safuwan Baharudin, Singapore were undone by a header from Ala’a Abdulzehr five minutes after the restart.

Singapore then had a penalty appeal turned down just as they were starting to pile pressure on the visitors. The ball fell to Hafiz Rahim, who started his first international match, in the penalty area, but just when he was about to pull the trigger, a Iraq defender came in from behind to put him off.

With the Lions trailing at 0-1 at that point, a converted penalty would have tied the match and swung the momentum towards the home side. The players definitely felt that that decision was the turning point of the match.

“It was a clear penalty,” said Daniel Bennett. “I think if we had the penalty, we could have very well have gone on to win it. But I think a draw would have been a fair result.”

“We conceded the first goal at a really bad time because we knew they were going to get tired. And they did. You can see they could barely move.”

Veteran striker Aleksandar Duric agreed, saying, “We probably should have taken our chances, though. I was pretty much cut out from the rest of the team, but it is a penalty anywhere around the world! Everyone knows that a tackle from behind is penalty!”

The 41-year-old Tampines Rovers striker had a frustrating outing as the Iraqi defence did a good job of cutting him off from the rest of the team. He lacked the serviced required to make an impact as he did not have a shot at goal.

But while the attack lacked bite, Young Lions’ Safuwan Bahrudin almost single-handedly kept the scoreline respectable as he turned in a man-of-the-match performance, timing his last-ditch challenges to perfection whenever the Iraqis managed to break through. He denied Nashat Akram and Younis Mahmood on numerous occasions in the first half.

Despite playing what the 19-year-old described as the “best match of my life”, he was unable to prevent the inevitable.

“It was just a lapse of concentration that cost us,” said Safuwan, who is now Raddy’s first choice to partner Daniel Bennett in defence.

“I think we should be more confident on the ball as that will help us make good attacking moves. Overall, we just weren’t there in our match. I know we can do better and we will definitely do our best in our remaining matches.”

The Lions next match will against Jordan at the Jalan Besar Stadium on October 11th and it is a must-win one after two disappointing matches.

This time, hopefully, luck will be on their side.