Asian Cup football qualification hangs in the balance for Lions

Story by REDintern Kenneth Tan. Photos by REDintern Thomas Tan and Alan Chiang/Red Sports.

National Stadium, Wednesday, January 6, 2010 - ´Our time has come. Make the Difference.' This was the tagline for the Nike RED campaign featuring 19-year-old national player Hariss Harun. In the end the only difference was shown in the gulf in class between the two football teams at the National Stadium as Singapore were outclassed 3-1 by 3-time Asian Cup winners Iran.

The turning point of the game came early. The Lions were hit with two quickfire Iran goals in the 11th and 13th minute. Referee Sun Bao Jie awarded a dubious penalty to the Iranians. Replays clearly showed a clean challenge by Singapore defender Precious Emuejeraye before Iran's Mehrzad Mandanchi fell down theatrically.

After Iran went ahead 1-0 through the penalty, the usually reliable Mustafic Fahrudin gave the ball straight to Mandanchi just outside the box, who duly punished the Lions with his clinical finish. Within a flash, the Lions were 2-nil down.

While the Lions showed grit to get a goal back in the 32nd minute through captain Noh Alam Shah, all hopes of snatching a point faded as Iran showed in the 62nd minute why they are one of the best football nations in Asia as they scored via a superb counter-attacking move involving just three players.

A corner from Shaiful was half-cleared and fell to Mustafic who attempted a shot outside the box which deflected off an Iranian defender. From there on, it was simply an attacking masterpiece by the Iranians as all they took just 15 seconds to stroke the ball from defence to attack, culminating in Gholamreza Rezaei scoring a superb goal.

It was clearly a goal worthy of winning any football game and summed up the gulf between the two teams. The goal was further described by Iran coach Afshin Ghotbi as “one of the best goals I've seen in a very long while, and will be remembered”.

However despite the defeat, there are a few positives for the Lions to take from this game. They did not gave up the fight despite facing a higher-ranked team in Asia and being two goals down early in the game.

Looking at individuals, goalkeeper Hassan Sunny was not at fault for any of the three goals conceded. Shaiful Esah's star continues to shine as his expertise from the dead ball provided the main threat for Singapore in front of goal and resulted in the solitary Lions goal in the game.

Substitute Khairul Amri was the spark in the second half with his electrifying acceleration and pace down the left flank while Hariss Harun was his usual combative and aggressive self in central midfield.

However a few players could have played much better; defender Precious was towering in the air, but gave the team many scary moments when he failed to clear the ball. Defensive midfielder Mustafic was uncharacteristically error-prone with his passing and distribution of the ball and right winger Ridhuan failed to justify his selection as he did not put his pace and speed to good use with no end product on his crossing. Veteran striker Duric worked hard being the target man, but did not have the turn of speed to get past the Iranian defenders and the legs to last the game.

With the defeat, Singapore slipped to third in the standings behind Thailand with an inferior head-to-head record after the latter played out a 0-0 draw with bottom-table Jordan. The final match day on March 3rd will see the already-qualified Iranians take on the Thais in Tehran while Singapore face Jordan in Amman. With both Singapore and Thailand sitting on 6 points, the key for the Lions is to get a better result than the Thais in the last game to ensure qualification.

Coach Raddy mentioned “fear is our own enemy” and “we can't afford to throw possession easily”, thus the Lions have to go into the next game with the same courage that was shown against the Iranians and retain the ball when they are in possession.

To all Lions fans, let's continue to believe in the Lions.