Singing and cheering along with the crowd in full capacity, the atmosphere at Jalan Besar Stadium this evening was electrifying! Off the pitch, Jalan Besar Stadium was painted red by near 7,000pax of Singaporean, and on the pitch, Singapore Lions were in bright red doing a fantastic job by making sure they gave Thailand a hard time right from the moment the game kicked off!
Singapore started the game strongly and as early as 8th minute, Aleksandar Duric won a penalty where Mustafic Fahrudin calmly sent the ball not once, but twice to the back of the net when the referee demanded a re-kick after spotted some infringement earlier.
In the 59th minute, Singapore defence was tore apart by Thailand’s speedy winger where the ball was squared in for Adul Lahsoh to tap in for a crucial away goal. Game on as Thailand leveled the score line.
The Thai’s celebration was short-lived as Khairul Amri had another plan minutes later. He received the ball from Duric, with his back against a Thai defender, he turned away neatly with the ball and slammed it past beyond Thailand goalkeeper’s reach to regain Singapore’s lead. The whole stadium erupted.
Just when we thought the story was going to end in a 2-1 favor scoreline, Khairul Amri’s fellow Lions XII’s team mate, defender Baihakki Khaizan, reacted fast enough to tap in a simple goal in front of Thailand’s goal in the injury time. With all due respect, Baihakki’s injury goal, Singapore’s third, sank and handed Thailand its very first defeat in this AFF Suzuki Cup 2012.
Thailand’s coach, Winfried Schafer will be emphasizing to his team to score more goals in the second leg of this finals. And he also wished for a good referee like what he had seen this evening.
For Singapore, coach Raddy will not sit back to defend the 2 goals lead but sang praises to Singapore team for keeping the shape, team spirit and as well as discipline.
Although this game was evenly matched, you could see that Singapore has got more hunger than the Thai. Eventually, Singapore Lions did not disappoint the nation. They beat Thailand 3-1 this evening, in the first leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup finals and will be bringing these 2 goals advantage to Bangkok this coming Saturday to make history!
Photo: www.affsuzukicup.com
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