December 9, 2004

Singapore coach Raddojko Avramovic is unlikely to tinker too much with the side that started 1-1 with Vietnam, when the Lions take on Indonesia at the Thong Nhat Stadium in their second Group A match.

Responding to the question about his team selection for the match against Indonesia, Avromovic glanced at the backdrops emblazoned with the 2004 Tiger Cup logo and quipped that ‘anything can happen’ but also suggested that continuity would be the order of the day.

He said the team continues to improve & we know that the match against Indonesia is very important. We may have beaten them 2-0 in Singapore but they had very different players & it was a friendly game.

That is why he had already warned his team not to take the result of that game too seriously.

While admitting it is difficult to gauge Indonesia thus far as their game against was too easy for them with the Laos team collapsing with every Indonesia attack, he still felt from what he observed the Indonesians are very disciplined & can be dangerous on the counterattack.

Apart from Avramovic, Indonesia coach Peter Withe is also unlikely to ring the changes even though a quite a number of errors in the Indonesia defence had given the Englishman some cause for concern.

He defended his team saying there are always going to be periods in a game when players lose concentration & that is what had happened to them against Laos.

Still he admitted defensively-wise they were not as sound as he could want them to be & that is something they will improve on.

However in term of attack, he knows his team is superior to Singapore & he is certain he has found the key to unlocking the Singapore defence which Vietnam had such a hard breaching.

But he know it will not be easy as Singapore have been together for a while bow & in the match against Vietnam they have shown they got good battling qualities.