SEA Games: Singapore football team needs to keep their cool against Myanmar, says coach
REPORTING FROM KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
As the Singapore under-22 football team prepares to take on Myanmar on Monday afternoon (14 Aug) at the Selayang stadium, coach Richard Tardy has implored his charges not to repeat the mistakes from the previous showdown against the same team.
At their final training session on Sunday at the Inspen Bangi Stadium, Tardy also said that he had been unhappy with the Young Lions’ attitudes in training on Friday before heading up to Kuala Lumpur.
At the AFC U-23 championship qualifiers match against Myanmar in Yangon on 19 July, both teams ended the match with 10 men. The Singapore team lost their composure on a number of occasions, and scuffles broke out twice on the pitch between the two teams.
“We talked a lot about this after that game – in our training camp, in our training sessions,” said Tardy.
“These kind of stupid actions can penalise the team and what happened in Myanmar was totally stupid. I hope these players understand that we must control ourselves about what we can or cannot do. They must learn.”
Getting through Myanmar’s defence
The only player of the 20-man squad to not participate on Sunday was the injured Adam Swandi.
It appears that Tardy has found the player to replace the attacking midfielder.
Hami Syahin, just 18, is set to make his debut in the biennial Games in the heart of the Singapore midfield alongside Joshua Pereira and Illyas Lee.
The playmaker will be tasked to unlock the Myanmar defence for his attackers, which will be no easy feat, especially if the Young Lions struggle to get on the ball – something that happened the last time they faced the same opponents in the AFC U-23 Championship qualifiers.
But Hami, who said he is ready to shoulder the “big responsibility”, stated that the team has got to “believe in ourselves”.
“That’s the most important thing right now. We have to work together as a team,” Hami told Yahoo News Singapore.
“Yes, we lost the previous time we met them, but we cannot dwell on that loss. We have to move forward. This is a different tournament; it is not in Myanmar, so there will be equal chance for both teams,” he said.
Hami also called on the team to give their best shot, and said that there must be “no regrets” when they finish the game.
“We must go all out and give everything till our last breath,” he said.
Follow Yahoo News Singapore’s SEA Games coverage here
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