Singapore vs. Japan
Just back from watching this exciting football match. The last football match I watched (ttfr not included) was Singapore vs. Brunei 10 years back when there was a Tiger Cup (or Malaysia Cup?). My sis somehow got 2 grandstand tix of this World Cup Preliminary at the last minute. We wanted to sell the tix away cos we tot it would be a one-sided match. According to my sis, grandstand tix was going for as much as $400 (!!!) each in the "black market". But in the end we din manage to sell cos too last minute. When we reached Jalan Besar Stadium, we had a culture shock. For a split second I tot I was in Japan (I wish!). At least 3/4 of the spectators were Japanese.. and all kawaii neh. It seemed like Japan was the host. Anyway, Singapore put up a tough fight against Japan and tried their best not to be intimidated by them. The goalkeeper Hassan Sunny should be commended for saving so many goals especially in the first half where the Japan team dominated the game and put 1 ball in the net. Singapore only possessed the ball 5% of the time in the 1st half.

Oh yah to digress a bit, the Japan team was really a bunch of eye-candies especially the suave and stylo Nakata (he's the only one in the team i could recognize actually). Everytime he was brought down by the Singaporean defender (3 times I think), all the gers in the stadium (Japanese and Singaporean alike) would stare angrily at the defender with fists clenched. And whenever Nakata touched the ball, all the gers would swoon and go ga-ga. The power of Nakata. Oh well..

In the second half, Singapore managed to attack a few times, one of which was the unexpected goal that caused 1/4 of the spectators to scream like mad and all the Japanese to drop their jaws. That was when Japan team started to get "kan cheong" and thereby quicken their pace in attacking. Singapore, after the morale-boosting goal, started to play more confidently. This 25 minutes was the best part of the game where the actions were spread more evenly between both halves of the field. Finally Japan kicked in one more goal 10 minutes b4 full-time and all the Japanese fans heaved a sigh of relief. But that's not the end. At the 86th minute (i think), Singapore made a dangerous attack towards Japan but the shot at goal went a bit too high. So in the end the score was a close 2-1 and not 9-0 like most pple (including me) predicted.

I mus really say Singapore put up a tough fight and the goalie really saved a lot of balls (no pun intended). And I really sympathise with those gamblers and punters out there who bet Japan to win by at least 2 goals. I perfectly understand how u all feel. The ball is round. Anything could happen. Toto would be a better option.