September
5, 2004
The smile on Itimi Dickson's face after he
received a unanimous vote for the man of the match award, following
The winger had
just completed his first international match for his adopted nation at the Jalan Besar stadium, just days
after being granted Singapore citizenship & Dickson gave the 3,000-odd
supporters plenty to cheer about by setting up Singapore's first goal and being
a constant thorn in the side of the Indonesian defence.
Dickson
said it was a great feeling to start in his first international after just a
few days as a Singaporean & he had dreamt of this moment ever since he was
offered a chance to become a citizen.
Also the
most important thing to him was
Adding to
that the new citizen was even singing the national anthem before the start of
the match.
He said
that he had picked up most of the words by watching the opening and closing
transmissions of the television channels that play the national anthem but he
still does not know all the words & is still learning.
He hopes he
will know all the words to my new national anthem very soon.
The Young
Lions player was certainly a factor in the match & deserved the man of the
match award as he used his speed on the right flank to tremendous effect,
despite playing with a niggling ankle injury he picked up 2 months ago in an
S-league match, as on many occasions, the frustrated Indonesians resorted to
fair or foul (Mostly foul) to stop him.
Certainly
National coach Radojko Avramovic
was impressive by it as the Serb-Montenegrin singled out the commitment of the
Raddy said he was
happy with Dickson attitude & how he played in his first match for
However Raddy cautioned against overlaying on Dickson as he need
time to develop into a better player.