Roared on by the vociferous home crowd, Malaysia qualified for the finals by beating Singapore 1-0 in a highly competitive game between the causeway rivals.
With the Singapore back line sitting deep, the Malaysians found it difficult to create any notable openings and the pressure soon started to grow on their players. Passes and the all important first touch went astray. As anticipated by Coach Arasu, the volatile home crowd started to turn on the Malaysians.
Thriving in an atmosphere akin to a high-profile S-League game, we played with great self-belief and took the game to the Malaysians. Unlike previous games, we were able to keep the ball very well and this allowed us to bring our forwards into play. The Malaysians were struggling to contain the rampaging Ram as his long shots had the keeper scrambling on a couple of occasions.
However in the 42nd min, Malaysia took the lead against the run of play when a header from the Malaysian captain was parried by Kevin into the path of a lurking Malaysian who made no mistake from 6 yards out.
Though we suffered a major psychological blow by conceding a goal just 3mins before half time, the players picked up from where they left off and continued playing with great purpose and confidence. Alas, an equalizer did not come as Malaysia hung on for a 1-0 victory.
After the game, Coach Arasu praised the players, and said that this was the best performance he has experienced as coach of a Singapore team at the AUG. The Malaysian officials were also impressed as they had expected their team to steamroll us by at least 4 goals. We might have lost, but it was a performance to be proud of.
Man of the Match: Ram
Lineup: Kevin, Jerome, Chris, Gerald, Jerry (Aaron), Fabian, Zhiwei, Andy (Jonathan), Pramod (Vincent), Khai, Ram
