Yazadarit.. you got it! thank you! that's our point exactly. in fact, when the scheme was first introduced. not just our neighbours, but our local players felt the threat from these foreigners. Xenophobia at play. and mind you, there are still large percentage of players who hate the scheme. our ASEAN neighbours only have to face them once every two years. but our local boys have to compete with them for every match. even our own league have a Japanese, Chinese and Korean team competing. and so far our boys have shine fairly well, with no foreign team ever won the league and cup, and even the Koreans are at the bottom in the first season. (But they are 2nd in the league this year) and judging from our recent performance in games against teams outside Asean. we can see that we have eliminate xenophobia from our side. as over the years, we have not only play with, but against them. this doesn't come over night like most who think we just pay foreign players to play for us. They really have to like Singapore as a whole before they would gave up their citizenship and gave best playing career time here and together with their family. The system is a 'fast food' for Singapore and have benefited the most, and Asean will benefit and see the effects in near future. and with Singapore's open immigration policy. in the near future you will see non-asian or half asian Singaporean playing for our country. and base on stats, with large percentage of Singapore men marrying foreign born wives. don't be surprise you'll see half-Viet, half-Burmese, half-Indonesian. half-Thai, Eurasian playing in our team. our future potential star could be a half-Singaporean/half South-African .. do a google search let's do the maths for argument sake (in respond to some post before this). let's say we only have half native-Singaporean in our team. that's not bad for a population of only 2.5 millions native. compare to our neignbours who have a population range of 30 - 230 million. does that mean they should have a 120 - 920 national team (or 240 - 1840 half team) capable players with standard on par to the Singapore team? Mind you, some of our Asean neighbours still practise racial-biased selection. They are not even selected to play even though they are born in the country and have been there for generations!!! (Come to Singapore, we will accept you 'regardless of race, language or religion' - that's from our National Pledge) with that, I'm glad Singapore have moved beyond racial discrimination, and even have players who doesn't 'look' like they even belong to this part of the hemisphere. Ask me again whether I'm proud of our team.. Yes I am.
Back to the finals... Since we lost to Vietnam, I like to make our lost a little more worthwhile. I hope Vietnam can give the Thais a little good fight and win the game. I'll be supporting Vietnam... Go Vietnam Goal! Help us stop Thailand from getting their 4th AFF Championship...
I think the final would be interesting for me as I like football being played on the ground. Both teams play quick passing which is nice to watch for me. Although I'm a Singaporean, I have to say Vietnam deserved to win semi-final. Let's not forget that the semi-final was a 2-legged match, not just the second leg. I would say both Singapore and Vietnam had the same problem in both legs. Missing tons of chances. In the end, Vietnam took their chance. It's as simple as that. Anyway, good luck to both teams. Let's hope for an exciting 2-legged final.
The goal: http://nld.com.vn/tintuc/the-thao/video/SIN_VN01.wmv ----> one one fast fater and strong ---> very beautifull.
The only thing makes me concern is VNese player's stamina. They lost alot of steam in the 2nd leg, and could not be fully fit for the 1st leg final, while Thailand has one more day off and do not have to move from place to place. Hopefully the players still can recover and stand still after 90minutes at Rajamandala.
I still don't know how we did it. At Singapore: 1 chance - 1 goal 1st haft in Thailand: 2 chances - 2 goals .... We have never been good at scoring
holy shit...i can't believe vietnam won......anyway,go vietnam! go vietnam! beat thailand and win da cup 4 da first time
Wonderful!!!I can find any words to fit my emotion.just wonderful!!! Oh man, wake me up tomorrow and tell me I'm not dreaming tonight!!!
Too bad that the referee give an off-side for that... Teerasin is not off-side at all... Good work anyway Vietnam and see you sunday!
I do. Judging from the way Thailand played, they are still much in the game. I'm amazed that Thailand would make mistakes like leaving a huge gap at the back.
If you are a singaporean I applaud you. For once a s'porean does not over-defend the FTS. A professional league should have foreign players. It helps the local players, if not, like you said, the locals would play against themselves and the standard would be the same. FTs in League and FTs in national team are different. Before the fans get all sensitive again, I'm not opposing FT system, don't get too excited yet. I agree with Yazar. Most of the asean teams/fans have a problem with s'pore's FTs is because s'pore is not bringing in Indonesian players, Thai players or Burmese players etc. like they used to, but they bring in Africans and Europeans who are better in physical aspects and skills to some extent, and therefore the region frowns upon it. We need to get rid of this mentality, forget about FTs and play against them and beat them. So I understand S'pore have a reason to do that. I agree with all the reasons, like population and chinese are not taking up football, and raising the standard of local football, and desperate to win, etc. As I said I know about s'pore's situation and expectations. But you should also put yourself in the shoes of region's fans. They just happen to speak what they feel inside, even if they do not oppose the FTs scheme. We all have thoughts. I know you would say no, but imagine this, singapore has no foreign players, and you have no plan for FTs, and then suddenly Thailand come up with 9 european players. How would you feel? Half of you would be "oh well, it's their right, their way, I have no problem with that. Good for Asean football in a way." But half of you would be "@!#$$." If you say, nah I won't be like that, you are in denial or too defensive. So s'pore fans, please don't get too sensitive when a foreign fan raise this issue. They don't totally mean it in a bad way, for some. S'pore adding European players raises the standards in other national teams in the region. I totally agree. But although no one had said it literally, I get a sense from the posts that people are glorifying the scheme for "this reason", and seem like suggesting S'pore should do it for "this reason". I don't think we should glorify "this reason" too much. For now I agree it does raise the standard. But that doesn't mean it should go: Singapore: "We're gonna add 3 more European players, okay? Oi, we help to raise the standard of Asean football you know." Thailand: "You're right Singapore! That's good. Add more. Good for us too." Vietnam: "Hey, you know, Singapore is actually doing us a favor." Malaysia: "Wah, cannot lose out leh, we add brazilians. It raises the standard of Asean football what!" It's not wrong at all. But it certainly would be weird.
Same mistakes as Singapore. We was trapping midfielders, they were too close to forwarders. Calisto was very smart when having Cong Vinh (9) on the left (not in the middle like usual) to block Thai right defender who can attache very well. I like this setup a lot.