Uzbekisurat

So yesterday began like this. My brother decided to give up 3 Singapore-Uzbekistan tickets for some reason or another and since he was so charitable, I was more than willing to accept it. Rezeki jangan ditolak, Mus jangan dicari. Remember that.

And as we found out later on, it is always good to have the tickets beforehand. I think it was safe to say we totally underestimated the crowd and we were greeted with a long queue to the ticket counter upon reaching the entrance. We referring to Jon, Sam, Zal and Nas. Since there were only 3 tickets at hand and I obviously took one of them, I could only bring in 2 of them in with me while the other 2 had to wait to buy the ticket. . Since Nas was the idiot of the day asking dumb questions like “ Eh is this prata?” like he has not seen one before and “What drink is this ah Jon” when it was clearly Milo Dinosaur with the Milo powder evident in significant amounts, he clearly did not deserve that ticket. Zal followed suit by giving a dumb comment/question and on that account, I decided that Sam and Jon went in with me first to book the seats. Though I pitied them because they had to endure the long queue and Zal got grinded by an old man in the process (which at the same time made Nas jealous), I think in retrospect it just pays not to be dumb. So ingat eh guys, berbual tu lain kali secara matang dan berwaspada la please.

So on to the match. My views on the game are threefold. First fold, the defence totally let the team down. At any level, conceding 7 goals can only be seen as disastrous. Lionel Lewis, Nor Rahman and Daniel Bennett all committed an individual error each which led directly to the goal. Goals which could have definitely been prevented. Such soft goals not only demoralized the team, but their costly mistakes continued to play in their mind hence further allowing the Uzbekistanareanamites to destroy all remaining hope and confidence of the team. The result, a good old 7-3 walloping cum spanking cum rout cum hisap la banyak nye cum.

Second fold, Singapore actually played a decent and attacking passing game. I was impressed by how the defenders always look to pass to the midfielder first instead of punting it aimlessly and how the midfielders actually attempted one touch plays in mini triangles before trying to find the killer pass. I thought Mustafic had another excellent game and Wilkinson had a good game as well. They were not intimidated by the opponents and more often than not, they spread the play very well. The hold-up play of the lone strikers, Duric in the first half and Coli(his name is Qiu Li but whatever la they sound the same) in the second half was credible and they always tried to bring the wingers into the game. If you put the defending aside, there was seriously a marked improvement in Singapore’s style of play and I see no reason why they should not continue to play this way.

And now, the third fold. I would like to think that the presence of Noh Alam Shah and Indra would have made such a difference. It was really a pity they were both unavailable. One is injured and the other deserved his suspension but they will undoubtedly pose a lot more threat than the best player on the pitch and leading nominee for the 'So Fast I Left My Brain Behind' award Mohd Ridhuan.Ok so you‘re blessed with speed, but this was never a 100m race. There’s this round thing called the ball which you are suppose to be in control of and by now a master of it considering that you play with that damn thing everyday in training. In the words of Zal, seriously hisap bodoh. Or in the words of the Kallang crowd, tet tet tet tet tet, tet tet tet tet BOOOO TOHHHHHHH .

All in all, the 10 goal thriller translates to a goal every 9 minutes which translates to a very worthwhile trip. I will definitely be up for another one of this, free tickets or not.