Wednesday, December 03, 2008
From the Tiger beer-sponsored
Tiger Cup (from 1996 to 2004), to the
ASEAN Football Championship (2007), and now, it's called the
2008 AFF Suzuki Cup... Singapore won the 1998, 2004 and 2007 editions, and would want to add the 2008 one to their trophy cabinet, to make it an historic 4 wins.
However, they are plagued with much injuries and retirements to key players of previous editions, and this might affect their chances. The likes of ex-skipper Aide Iskandar and experienced veteran S Subramani retiring, and with speedy, tricky players like Khairul Amri and Fazrul Nawaz injured, some doubt whether drafted in replaces will be sufficient.
Some new faces to this Championship are the likes of Young Lions' goalie Hyrulnizam Jumaat and defender Ismail Yunos.
Singapore do have a few very experienced players, who have played at the top level for many years now, like 37-years young forward Aleksandar Duric, Home Utd superstar Indra Sahdan Daud, SAFFC defender Daniel Bennett, and Singapore's No. 1 Lionel Lewis, and this are probably the spine of the team.
Various foreign talents like China-born Shi Jiayi, who can really pass the ball over long distances, and takes much of Singapore's set-pieces; Serbian-born Mustafic Fahrudin, is a very composed defensive midfielder, with good tackling technique and is also VERY useful with penalties; English-born John Wilkinson, who is very good on the ball and a decent passer of the ball. Other foreigners are African-born defender Precious and striker Agu Casmir.
The future talents in the squad currently include the likes of Shahril Ishak, Baihakki Khaizan, Juma'at Jantan, Ridhuan Muhammed and Isa Halim. The former is a great midfield talent for Singapore, almost Steven Gerrard-like player, with the latter four either defenders or defensive-minded full-backs or midfielders.
So yeah... First up is Cambodia shown on cable at 5.55pm on Friday. Go catch the match!
Bye~!
my thoughts at 9:53 pm