Full-strength Azkals yield to Singaporeans

MANILA, Philippines - A full-bodied Philippine Azkals suffered a stinging 0-2 setback at the hands of a vengeful Singapore Lions in their international friendly Friday night at the Jalan Besar Stadium in Singapore.

Making positional adjustments after a scoreless first half, the Lions scored two goals inside the first 20 minutes of the second half to pull off the victory, avenging their stunning 1-1 standoff with the Azkals in the 2010 Suzuki Cup group stages. That draw dampened their bid in the said tourney.

Shaiful Esah opened scoring at the 50th, when his canon got deflected by Azkal defender Ray Jonsson and went in. Ageless striker Aleksandar Duric, 40, followed this up with a shot to the bottom left corner of the net off a counter at the 65th.

“It is always difficult when you try to make some changes,” Singapore’s Serbian coach Radojko Avramovic was quoted in a report on the website of The Football Association of Singapore (FAS).

“In the first half, our attacks were cut from midfield and we couldn’t keep possession in the opponent’s half. And when you can’t do that, you cannot create chances. We then changed the positions of a few players during the break, and the team looked a lot better.”

Phl XI (166th in the world) fielded in a complete team with Europe-based pros Neil Etheridge, Paul Mulders, Dennis Cagara and Jerry Lucena joining the locally-based Azkals led by Aly Borromeo, Chieffy Caligdong, Phil and James Younghusband and Angel Guirado against Singapore (136th).

Azkals coach Michael Weiss admitted the lack of cohesion for his full squad, something that can only improve by constantly playing high-level matches together.

“Singapore and Thailand are considered the best teams in the South East Asian region and we need more of such games to grow and become better. With time, we will only get stronger,” he said in the match report on FAS.

The Azkals, who were cheered on by a huge number of Filipinos at the stadium, had their scoring chances but couldn’t find the mark against the compact Singapore side.

Weiss said the Azkals played well despite the fact that some players, like Etheridge, had to endure jetlag from traveling to the Lion City from various countries in Europe.

“They were tired and jet-lagged but they played well despite that fact. We were compact in the first half and played quite okay,” the German mentor said.

Still Weiss gave credit to Singapore, which used the match as part of build up for their World Cup qualifying third round duel with Jordan.

“We played against a clever and mature team,” said Weiss, hopeful that the squad learned its lessons going to the next friendly against Nepal on Tuesday at the Rizal Memorial Stadium.

“But it (Singapore game) was a good opportunity for the team to play together and see the things we need to work on before the home match against Nepal.”

The stint of two Azkals for the Nepal setto, though, is doubtful after Guirado (suspected fracture) and Ian Araneta (knee) suffered injuries in the Singapore friendly.