Singapore’s SEA Games Campaign already ended before facing Vietnam

Photo Credit: the straits times

We will have to see more on the Singaporean side ahead in the Sea Games against their upcoming opponents. Take a look at our latest Singapore football news on the results of Vietnam against Singapore faceoff journey to SEA Games. The Singapore national football team were knockout from the SEA Games 30th men’s football even before the ball was kicked in their faceoff against Vietnam at the Rizal Memorial Stadium in Manila, Philippines yesterday, incorporating what has been a poor campaign for the Singaporean Players Under-22 team. In the meantime, the reigning champions Thailand defeated the Laos in a 2 – 0 victory in an earlier match to certify the Singapore’s early elimination. Afterwards the Republic lost against the Vietnamese team in 1 – 0 score line and with one match remaining, they sit in the 5th position from their six team Group B, and for the record they have only one point coming from their four games. While it was another continued loss for Singapore on these matches, coach Fandi Ahmad, 57-year-old, he was grateful with the performance and stated:

“We are happy with our performance, but not the result….. because this was our best game, against the best team. We fought hard…. The desire to win was there. Tactically, we were solid and the boys gave everything. We had chances in the first half, and Vietnam has none. In the second half, they came back strong, and we made just one mistake to give away the corner which led to the deciding goal. We’ve got to work harder for the next campaign, which some of them will still be eligible for. I hope the players also work hard to make it to the senior national team.”

As a free standing match, his squad’s showmanship against the team of Vietnam who have qualified for the next month’s Asian Football Confederation U-23 Championship by setting aside Thailand, Brunei and Indonesia, was considered as inspiring one. Most importantly, the Vietnam U-22s, who are targeting for the country’s 1st football gold in 60 years, they have been in good shape this year, their lone loss coming with the United Arab Emirates. Ahmad created three changes to the squad who were beaten by Thailand and they can take heart from a determined performance, in which they have played hard and made life struggled for the Vietnamese squad, in which resulted to a zero shots within the 1st half. Their defensive mechanism also devastated Vietnam, from making the point that Nguyen Tien Linh targeted a sneaky punch to the back of Jacob Mahler within 83rd minute occurrence that unfortunately was overlooked by the game officials. Furthermore, Vietnam squad penalized Singapore’s capability to net in when Ha Duc Chinh made the breakthrough from a corner after two minutes. Vietnam are the leader in Group B with 12 points, along with Thailand and Indonesia on nine points. Only the top two squads will qualify to the semi-finals and with Indonesia against Laos, who have their four points, and tomorrow Thailand side must shut down Vietnam on the same day match to progress.