Not the kind of scoreline you see every day.
I made my way down to the National Stadium for what will probably be the second-last time. (The last time should be Singapore v Saudi Arabia two Saturdays from now, by which time the game might be inconsequential to our qualifying hopes.)
A colleague, my boss’ kid (I kid you not) and I missed the bulk of the action in the first half. By the time we got in, it was already 2-3 to the Uzbeks. Judging from the cheering we heard just as we were walking towards the stadium, Singapore were the most recent scorers.
(We got in free. Primary school kids and below get free entry. And some random guy passed complimentary tickets to my colleague and I as we were walking up the stairs.)
Anyway, in the next few minutes, everything fell apart.
Here’s the odd thing. I felt we could still fight back. Even after we eventually went 2-6 down.
The Lions performed admirably but were let down by some seriously naive defending, especially at set-pieces. Daniel Bennett, normally solid, had a topsy-turvy night. Precious (I won’t even try spelling his surname) was given a torrid time. His lack of pace was totally exposed by the short-passing Uzbeks. Our defensive organisation was horrid.
Besides the defending, we were creating chances. Not as many as the Uzbeks, who could easily have won this game by double-digits if not for some unbelievable misses from close and the fingertips of Lionel Lewis. But we still created chances. We still fought.
Which is why there were no boos, no jeers for the Lions, even though we conceded more than I can remember in any recent game. Even though we were beaten by four goals.
I remember the last major embarrassing scoreline we had. That infamous trashing by Malaysia in the Tiger Cup a few years back. That night, the crowd turned on the Lions, and almost justifiably so. We just let them trample all over us.
Tonight, we took a severe beating, still got up and tried to give as good as we got.
For that, I applaud our Lions.
Deadpoet's Cave 