Singapore comfortably defeat Indonesia in football friendly

Story by Koh Yizhe/Red Sports. Photos by Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports.

National Stadium, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 - An Aleksandar Duric brace coupled with a Noh Alam Shah goal gave Singapore a 3-1 victory over Indonesia in a football friendly to cap off Singapore's preparations for their crucial Asian Cup qualifier against Thailand next week.

All three goals came from set-pieces with Shaiful Esah assisting on all of them.

Prior to this match, Singapore had won the Ho Chi Minh International Tournament in preparation for the match against Thailand on November 14.

Singapore came into the match on the attack, immediately pressuring Indonesia's backline and they were rewarded as early as the 10th minute when the home side got a free kick on the right. Shaiful Esah delivered a perfect cross into the heart of the Indonesian defense for Aleksandar Duric to open the scoring.

The lead didn't last three minutes, however, as Indonesia found an immediate reply. A lapse of concentration in Singapore's defense allowed the ball to be slipped to Eka Ramdani. With plenty of space, he made an accurate shot from outside the box that was just beyond the reach of Hassan Sunny to level to scores at 1-1.

The home side almost took the lead again a minute later when Shahril Ishak was released in the penalty box, but Markus Harison Rihihina was there to pull off a brilliant save from a tight angle.

The Indonesia custodian, however, was helpless when Noh Alam Shah gave Singapore the lead seven minutes later. Yet another Esah free kick in a similar position was headed home by Noh Alam Shah with a looping header which left Rihihina stranded to give Singapore a 2-1 lead.

While Singapore were able to maintain possession and control the match, the visitors found it hard to break out of their own half and were lucky to trail by only one at half-time.

Despite the rain pouring down six minutes into the second half, the home side almost doubled their lead when a long ball found Noh Alam Shah, but Rihihina came to Indonesia's rescue again.

Three minutes later, Singapore suffered a setback. The hard-tackling Mustafic Fahrudin, who was the heart of midfield all night, injured his ankle when half-time substitute Lionel Lewis accidentally stepped on his ankle during a goal mouth scramble. Mustafic was replaced by Young Lion's Hariss Harun.

But this small setback didn't stop Singapore from extending their lead. Shaiful Esah once again provided the assist in the 53rd minute, this time with a corner to the near post for Duric to sneak in and double his tally.

With a 3-1 lead and the victory secured, Singapore coach Radojko Avramovic brought on Indra Sahdan and Fazrul Nawz for Noh Alam Shah and Shahril Isak. Precious Emuejeraye and Khairul Amri were also given a run for 20 minutes as Singapore slowed the pace of the match to a crawl.

Towards the end of the match, Indonesia forward Saktiawan Sinaga almost pulled one back from 25 yards out, but Lionel Lewis was alert to deny him.

Indonesia's coach Benny Dolo felt his team's marking during set-pieces resulted in the defeat.

"Singapore is very advanced in set-pieces because they have Duric who is a very tall guy," commented Dolo. "Three set-pieces resulted in three goals for Singapore and I am definitely not happy with the marking as the goals could have all been prevented."

"That's the problem for us now, we must have full concentration when defending set-pieces," he added.

For Singapore coach Radojko Avramovic, he was very pleased with his team performance.

"The players did well tonight. They had the right attitude and approach to the game and deserved to win," analyzed Avramovic. "I don't think Indonesia is an easy opponent and they are very similar to the Thai team. Nothing is easy as many things had to come together for us to score three goals. The delivery, positioning, timing all had to be right."

"Our match against Thailand will be a new game, and we will deal with it when it comes," said Singapore's head coach.