November 28,
2004
A late goal
by substitute Noh Alam Shah gave Singapore a 1-0 win
over Myanmar at the Jalan Besar
Stadium in a warm-up match for both sides ahead of the kick-off of the Tiger
Cup next week.
The Tampines Rovers striker came on as a half-time substitute &
staked his claim for a spot in the Lions’ starting line-up for their Tiger Cup
opener against Vietnam on December 7 by heading home a Shahril
Ishak corner with just 12 minutes remaining.
The game,
part of the Tiger International Football Festival triangular in the island
republic, was a good opportunity for Singapore coach Raddy
Avramovic & his Myanmar counterpart Ivan Kolev to test out their potential starting line-ups for the
Tiger Cup & the commitment of the players was evident in a hard-fought
encounter between the 2 sides.
Despite
fielding a youthful squad, Myanmar gave a good account of themselves with
striker Yan Paing a
constant thorn in the side of the Singapore defence
while veteran skipper Aung Kyaw
Moe & youngster Lai Ceu Luai
proved commanding in midfield.
Singapore
striker Agu Casmir, returning after a long injury
layoff, was largely anonymous & was replaced at the break by Alam Shah, who grabbed the opportunity with both hands as
he linked up well with forwards Indra Sahdan & Khairul Amri to set up a number of chances before netting the
winning goal himself late in the game.
Avramovic said both
teams worked very hard but we had made it difficult for ourselves because we
did not convert most of the clear chances that we had in the first half. In International games, one usually get
only a handful of those chances & you have to make them count.