December 13, 2004

Despite Laos talk of an upset, the history book points to a Singapore victory with the Lions having beaten Laos in their three previous Tiger Cup encounters.

The most recent meeting between the 2 was in the group stage of the 2002 Tiger Cup in Singapore, when goals from Noh Alam Shah, who is in the current side, & Noor Ali gave the home side a 2-1 win. Prior to that, Singapore had also beat Laos 3-0 in Songklha in 2000 & 4-1 in 1998, which is the Lions’ biggest ever win in the Tiger Cup.

That is why Laos must be hoping Singapore defence have an off night as they will be missing captain Aide Iskander for the Lions’ crucial Group A clash with Laos at the My Dinh national Stadium as the influential centre-back, who has been in the Singapore squad for every Tiger Cup since the tournament began in 1996, picked up a yellow card in the matches against Vietnam & Indonesia & is suspended for one game.

Singapore coach Raddojko Avramovic though is not worried as he announced the captain’s arm band will be passed to S. Subramani who, like Aide, has represented his country at all five Tiger Cups.

Avramovic feel Singapore have the strength in depth to deal with Aide loss as at the moment the players are in good shape & everything has gone well in the preparations, in the meetings & in training.

Therefore he is confident if Singapore showed what they have been doing all along they will be able to achieve the desire result against Laos

But equally confident is Laos coach Bounlap Khenkitisack as he still continued to believe & talk up that his side can reach the last four but with the goals thus far they have scored coming from the spot scored by captain Chalana Luang-Amath, he will have to be looking for his forward duo of Phaphouvanin and Valasine Dalaphone will start converting the chances they make during open play