Purpose defeated after July's MOU?

The mood is just so different this time as the Singapore contingent embarked for their annual trip to Shah Alam for the annual Sultan of Selangor Cup tournament.

The coaches carried the Singapore contingent to Shah Alam

This year's edition coincides with the reigning Sultan's 10th anniversary on the throne, which the organizers had promised to make a grand event that two former EPL stars Jason McAteer and Jesper Bloomqvist are being roped in for the Selangor Selection in the marquee match against the Singapore national team, who will be using this match for tuning up to their remaining World Cup qualifier matches.

More significantly, the meeting also marks the first meeting of both sides since the signing of the joint MOU between FAS and FAM.

At the R & R stop at Machap

After all, both Singapore and Selangor are two of the most celebrated sides in Malayan football history.

The joint declaration penned in July would be seen by many as the prelude to the revival of this unique footballing rivalry after Singapore decided to field a team in Malaysian domestic league as agreed under the terms of the joint MOU.

Wet weather greeted us as we turned into Shah Alam

Just as our coaches turned their way to into Shah Alam, one question came to my mind - would this tournament initiated by the ruler lose its gloss next year after the July's MOU?

Probably, only time will tell if the tournament that is use to foster better ties between both sides still have its purpose fulfill then.

Hello, Shah Alam.. I am back :)

"Live" Tweet-dating of the Sultan of Selangor Cup 2011

I'm not sure how if this thing gonna work but at least I would like to give a try.

For those on twitter, you may want to share your thoughts on the event by tweet your say by include "#SOSCup2011", while at the meantime I am praying hard the bridge data roaming by my mobile provider will be working fine through the event.

Below is the widget of the tweets related to the event (your tweets should reflect on here as well if you use the mentioned # and please do feel free to send your message to those who are heading up, thanks.

THE TWEET WIDGET HAD BEEN PLACED UNDER THE TWITTER MENU ON THE RIGHT SIDE MENU, THANKS

Get ready for Shah Alam ...

In a media release by the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) this evening, national coach Raddy Avramovic had named the squad of 18 players to represent the Singapore Selection in their annual fixture against the Selangor Selection in the Sultan of Selangor Cup this coming Saturday at Shah Alam.

The Singapore Selection
The squad list as follows.

1	Izwan Mahbud	GK
2	Ruzaini Zainal	MF
3	Safuwan Baharudin	DF
4	Shahdan Sulaiman	MF
5	Hamqaamal Shah	DF
6	Ismail Yunos	DF
7	Hafiz Rahim	FW
8	Juma'at Jantan	DF
9	Lionel Lewis	GK
10	Isa Halim	MF
11	Shi Jiayi	MF
12	Daniel Bennett	DF
13	Fazrul Nawaz	FW
14	Shaiful Esah	DF
15	Noh Rahman	DF
16	Delwinder Singh	DF
17	Aleksandar Duric	FW
18	Shahril Ishak	MF

It's no secret that coach Raddy is grabbing any available opportunity at the present moment to get things tune up for their upcoming World Cup Qualifier match against Jordan next month.

Noh Rahman (in white jersey) is named in the 18-men list (picture credit: Gale Gan)

Besides the re-inclusion of Gombak's defender Ismail Yunos to the foray, another surprise was the recall of SAFFC's defender Noh Rahman into the training squad after he, alongside with other notable few, was not selected in the "revamped" squad when named in late May.

The Singapore Veterans
In the same release, the Singapore Veterans squad was also made available as follows:

1	Abdullah Noor	FW
2	Ahmad Sayuti	FW
3	D Tokijan	MF
4	Don Ang	FW
5	Ishak Sa'ad	DF
6	Kamaruzaman Zainal	MF
7	Leong Kok Fann	MF
8	Malek Awab	MF
9	Nahar Daud	FW
10	R Suria Murthi	MF
11	Razali Rashid	FW
12	Razali Saad	DF
13	Robert Sim	DF
14	Lim Tien Jit	DF
15	Shahri Rahim	GK
16	Steven Tan	MF
17	Syed Faruk	MF
18	Tay Peng Kee	FW
19	Yahya Madon	MF
20	Yusman Yusoff	DF/MF

The veterans will be fronted by former Lions skipper Samad Allapitchay with his former team mates Ho Kwang Hock and "Banana-Kick" specialist S Rajagopal as part of the coaching panel for these former Lions.

Ticketing Details 
Tickets are on sale now till 30th Sept (Fri) at the South Gate of the Jalan Besar Stadium from 12.00 pm to 8.00 pm at $5 each.

Propel from obscurity - scribe on COE football

I must admit I have not been giving much attention to COE football until this afternoon at the Old Police Academy.

Alerted by "Liga Singapura" that the title decider was going to be staged at the once Police training facilities, I decided to head down with my camera to snap some shots between Home United and Tanjong Pagar United.

Tanjong Pagar Utd's COE U16 team

Home Utd's COE U16 first eleven

The equation of the match was simple, all Home United needed to do was a draw with the junior Jaguars and the Centre Of Excellence (COE) U16 league title is theirs.

At the end of the day, not only the junior Protectors did not lose to the match, but also convincingly beat their opponents 3-0 to seal the title.

Despite long tucked in the obscurity from general football public, the standard of play has been "competitive" according to "Liga Singapura" who cater a separate blog - "Information on Singapore youth football" to focus on COE leagues.

"Some of the boys whom I have seen so far are good enough to feature in various national age-group teams." said the leading blogger who only started to cover the scene of youth football at start of the year and had since gained considerable rapport from the media-starved fraternity.

Beside the Old Police Academy, COE matches are being played on various venues such as St Wilfred, Singapore Sports School (SSS), Queenstown Stadium, etc.

For more information on various COE leagues football, please log on to "Information on Singapore youth football" at "http://sgyouthfootball.blogspot.com"

Congrats to Home Utd for clinching the COE U16 title at Old Police Academy

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE REST OF THE MATCH PICTURES.

I should have QUIT!!!

The beauty of the Cup competition lives on in the RHB Singapore Cup as the "Final Four" - Etoile FC, Home United, Albirex Niigata (Singapore) and Hougang United fought till the very end to see the emerging of the Protectors and the White Swans for the 19th November date at JBS.

Fred Mendy (pictured above right) scored against his old team to send HUFC to the final

In both first leg fixtures of the "Final Four" saw both the Stars and White Swans agonizingly forgo their lead in the dying moments of those matches to see their respective opponents - Home United and Hougang United crawled back to level terms to square off the encounter.

Incidentally, at one stage such a fightback was seen impossible until the dying moments of the match had distinguished the different approach of that of a knock-out cup tournament and round-robin league format fixtures.

Mendy propelled HU at expenses of old bosses
Yet, it wasn't really a nail-bitter when both Etoile and Home Utd met for their recurring fixture at Queenstown Stadium two days later with one tweet suggested it was a "boring" first half at Stirling Road.

Nonetheless, "Liga Singapura" offered a different perspective when he tweeted:"Its definitely far from a boring game, if you look at it from a tactical point of view. See this going 0-0 all the way and then PKs."

Things, however, did not go according to script as suggested by the leading blogger when last season's leading top scorer Frederic Mendy stabbed home the only goal in 55th minute to send Lee Lim Saeng's men to their first bid for the Cup in 6 years.

I should have QUIT to be at Hougang
I wouldn't mind give 24hrs notice to tender my quit notice in order to be at Hougang Stadium the following night.

Despite not being at the ground, I could still feel the heart pounding as I follow the #sgcup to keep track of the scores of the other tie between Hougang and Albirex.

What a game it was with Albirex beat the Cheetahs 5-4 agg to head to their 2nd Cup finals in weeks!!

After left his mark as a player, Hougang's coach Aide Iskandar has the potential to excel as a coach for what he done for the Cheetahs so far

Better marketing reckon in spite of F1
Sad to note that the timing of the semi-final matches collided with the Singapore Grand Prix that those keenly-contested battles were fought in front of disappointing crowds (hardly a pretty sight when these games were live-telecasted on cable).

Match snap of Hougang-Albirex's match courtesy of Gale Gan

Some may fault the lack of media coverage, although better marketing would have been done by organizers in hype up during the series.

After all, those at the four games were hardly disappointed by what they saw.

When honour become a liability

Based on their line up in their league fixture against Albirex Niigata (Singapore) that featured the likes of Lionel Lewis, Shi Jiayi, Qiu Li and Juma'at Jantan, one question floated into my mind and made me wonder if these Home United's Lions (and the rest from other teams in the S.League) felt that national duty is become a liability for having to juggle their club commitments after such a hectic international duty?

Don't get me wrong, it's always a honour to play for national team but the welfare of these fatigued Lions must be taken care of avoid burnt out and getting themselves injured unnecessary in time like this when their club's priorities are equally important.

After all, out of those above-mentioned we already had a few of them reportedly having some physical "un-well being" like Lionel got himself injured (after just returned from an adductor injury) in the loss against Iraq (pictured above receiving treatment ) that prompted him to reconsider his international future after that game.

Saddest thing that would be no players see it an honour, but a liability to play for the national team if such scheduling remains "status quo" and things remain 'volatile' as it is, while the effort of those who fought for the country gone unappreciated.

[Instant Reaction] The musical chair game just continue ...

The word "stability" is probably never exist in the dictionary of the league authority with the latest news that broke out this morning (screen-grab below) that suggested the possibility of 2009's League Cup winners DPMM of Brunei of rejoining the league.



I guess we shouldn't be too surprise of this latest development.

I am not referring to the application of the Brunians, but more of the fact that opaque selection criteria that seems to be flawed.

After all, that perceived "stringent" procedure did result the admission of those Chinese "clubs", Sporting Afrique, etc. with the fans scratching their heads over another round of "musical chairs" sequence.

"Radio Rosak" post

Saw this tweet message (pictured above) awhile ago and would like to reiterate an earlier blog post that emphasized that months ago.

Honestly speaking, how many people (except for those in the scene) are aware about the excitement?

I think this is something my fellow blogger, Antony Sutton of "Jakarta Casual" has been pondering over several times on his blog why most Singaporeans football fans are inclined to English and European football and despise what they have at their own backyard.

People have been blaming the quality, which of course I don't deny the fact that it may not be anywhere we seen on cable.

Jovial scene after another Hougang United's victory at home

Yet there were some really good games I have seen this season particularly from Albirex Niigata (Singapore) and Hougang United (for those who follow the scene should understand where I came from).

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that when such good games were played, there were little much coverage of what well these games were, let alone any follow up and in-depth analysis afterwards.

I used to be naive to think through the means of alternative media on how the gospel of local football can improve its awareness among the masses (to extend some of which did and make people to sit up and stare at their monitors or mobile screens on some of those stuff unearthed from obscurity).

Yet the massive excitement whipped up by the mainstreamers over the recent joint FAS-FAM MOU had, again, made me realized it's still a long way to go for these 'alternate' to be on par on those 'establishment'.

Glad to see many opinions on Singapore football heard via social media

If you ask me how to remedy the situation, I just cannot provide any answer at this moment nor can I just simply impose my thoughts on those unwilling parties still refused to accept how decent the S.League it is.

It just simply frustrating that the League itself being constantly associated with those negativity and having to see those good stuff overshadowed by those juicier headline.

Unless the mindset of the sceptics can be tweaked into the same frequency like those optimist, it's not likely to see this generation to accept the fact.

(P.S: Sorry if you guys found the content rather repetitive and that's the reason I called 'Radio Rosak' posting...)

It's not kids' football after all for the Iraqis

Apparently the Iraqis did not play like as what suggested by some being "kids' footballers" following the remark on the artificial surface of the Jalan Besar Stadium by their coach, Zico prior to the match.

In fact, the visiting side looked fairly comfortable on the plastic surface with much of the attacking play by them in the first half.

One of Safuwan's (no 2) heroics - foiled Nashat Akram from advance

Whereas the hosts - Singapore were confined largely in their defensive third to absorb those threats from the Middle-Easterners with young upstart Safuwan Baharudin gave another good account of himself to defray much of the threat in the first 45 minutes.

Not the same thing can be said about the attacking upfront though for the Lions.

Some flashes of brilliance were shown with Qiu Li making some inroads from the left flank to unsettle the Iraqis backline in the first half.

SAFFC's Fazrul Nawaz (no 10) replaced Qiu Li at start of second half

All these penetrating runs came to a standstill when some online feedback suggested the replacement of Qiu had dried up the supply upfront for evergreen Aleksandar Duric and skipper Shahril Ishak.

At the end of the day, the visitors proved to the more impressive side and gifted themselves with two goals (by Ala'a Abdulzehra in the 49th minute and skipper Younus Mahmood in the 86th minute) to anchor Singapore at the foot of the group after their second successive defeats.

It was a much relieved Arthur Antunes Coimbra, otherwise widely known as Zico, who greeted the media after the match.

Iraq's coach Zico addresses the media after the match.

"I'm very happy with the three points, as my players achieved what was expected from them." said the Brazilian coach whose moaning of the artificial surface had been hogging the headlines around the region.

"In this game, we created many opportunities and I'm also glad that we played well on this surface when in the place my players did not know how to play on it.

"As this was our second game in seven days and I know my players wanted to win this match, while at the meantime, I felt Singapore lacked the concentration tonight as compared to what I saw them against China on video."opined the Flamengo legend who is also a cult figure in Kashima region in Japan for his association with local J-League club Kashima Antler.

Due to the touchline ban meted out on him, Singapore coach Raddy Avramovic did not make his presence at the post-match press conference and nor did he stop for a word with media as he headed straight to the team coach waited outside at the ground after the game.

Aleksandar Duric speaks to the media at the "mixed zone"

 "I think we let them had too much space that they had a few shots (against us) in the first half which I think it was a good for us to stay 0-0 for the first 45 minutes, but the second half we made one mistake that allowed them to punish us." said Duric who spoke to the waiting media in the designated "mixed zone" outside the stadium before heading to the team coach.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE REST OF THE MATCH PICTURES.

"Artificial field meant for children" Zico

The man they called the "White Pele" never failed to reiterate his opinion on having game to be played on artificial surface after made known to the media a day earlier.

"To me personally, I think good football should be played on natural grass and artificial surface shall be used by small children in training instead." said Brazilian legend Zico, the newly appointed Iraqi national coach at the pre-match press conference of the 2014 World Cup qualifier match between Singapore and Iraq.

(Pictured above) Iraq national coach Zico took over the post less than a month ago

Despite his unpleasantness over the choice of playing surface at Jalan Besar Stadium, coach Zico added he still respects the decision undertaken by both FIFA and AFC for this match.

Beside the pitch, coach Zico also voiced his concern over the scheduling and the grouping of the qualifiers fixtures.

Said the former Flamengo superstar:"Perhaps, the organizers should be looking into how they can group the teams based on their (approximately) region instead of the present format.

"The distance involved in the traveling from Iraq to Singapore had made some of my players tired, as it was 30 hours from there to here." added the man who last visited Jalan Besar in 2004 as the Japan national coach.

Yet the ultimate agenda for both coach Zico and his Singapore counterpart, Raddy Avramovic (pictured above) is to gain maximum points out from the match tomorrow.

Having both lost their opening fixtures last week, it is "do-and-die" battle for both Singapore and Iraq.

"My team lost many chances in the last game against Jordan, while they had two chances and they scored on both occasions.

"I believe it was because that was the first time after long period that the team played their home game in Iraq and the players felt the pressure to perform in front of the home crowds, but for the tomorrow's game the most important thing is to put the ball into the net." added the 58-year old.

Both coaches last meet competitively in 2004 when JBS was still naturally turfed.

Echoed his much illustrious counterpart's thought, coach Raddy (pictured above) agrees the significance of the second match of this group qualifiers especially after that heartbreaking defeat to China last Friday.

"It was very difficult for the team after that game against China, as emotionally the team got affected but we tried our best and we are looking forward to our next game against Iraq which I hope it will be good game tomorrow." said the Serbian coach during the press conference.

Coach Raddy also gives an update on the players' condition by revealed that both China-born duo of Qiu Li and Shi Jiayi still having diarrhoea since returned home from Kunming with 'keeper Izwan Mahbud will be ruled out for the match following his ankle injury sustained during the match against the Chinese.

[Instant Reaction] ROBBED!! [edited]

Watched the match at "Botak Jones" near SPH instead

I think those who saw the match just now on TV would agree that bad decisions against us had cost us dearly at Kunming.

Already handicapped by the climate that bogged both sides, the controversial call by the referee (Andre El Haddad of Lebanon) in the second half on several decisions must had fumed a lot of folks back here with two dubious penalty decisions that eventually paved the way to an unglamorous win for the hosts.

But the defeat came with a heavy price with 'keeper Izwan Mahbud twisted his left ankle and several yellow card decisions accumulated in the process.

It's definitely not a good start to the campaign, but not at the expenses of having a biased official calling all the shots!

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Coach Raddy Avramovic said “I would like to thank all my players for putting in a great effort. We started and played well in the first half and could have scored more than one goal. In the 2nd half, China came back and managed to win by a one-goal margin.”

Goalkeeper Lionel Lewis, who came on in the second half for the injured Izwan, also shared his thoughts on the match: ”I tried my best and managed to save one of the penalties, but I feel that we should let this game pass and focus on our preparation for the next game.”

The Lions are scheduled to arrive home from Kunming on Saturday's night before getting themselves prepare for their next match against Iraq on this coming Tuesday night at the Jalan Besar Stadium.

(Quotes were extracted from the official FAS media information released shortly after the match)