Written by: Phoon Jia Hui
While the Singapore Selection side might have narrowly lost 2-1 to the Selangor Selection in the 2014 Sultan of Selangor’s Cup at Shah Alam Stadium on Saturday evening, coach Amin Nasir was pleased with the team’s showing.
“I can draw a lot of positives [from this match]. For this short period of time, the positive is we have the teamwork,” said Amin.
“You can see the understanding is there even though they are from different clubs. We gave them a good fight I felt. What I’m pleased is the way we fought the second-half full of discipline with ten men, full of workrate and spirit.
“It’s not an easy game as you can see. I felt that we lost out on the pace, they have speedy wingers down the flanks and I thought we were a bit slower.
“Overall, looking at the fact we only had a day of preparation together, we gave them a good fight especially in the second-half with ten men. I’m quite happy with the players’ attitude.”
Singapore Selection’s captain Fadhil Salim echoed his coach’s sentiments.
“It’s a pretty hard game actually because we were down to ten men but we managed to stay compact and sustain the scoreline and equalise,” he said.
“But we did not manage to hold on till the final whistle and conceded the second goal. I thought we played quite well although we only had one training session together.”
Introducing Leonel Felice at half-time proved to be an inspired move as the Geylang International forward scored the equaliser to cancel out Paulo Rangel’s opener, and Amin was delighted with the impact the Argentine made.
“We were down to ten men and we needed a target man so Leo replaced Geison [Moura] because we needed more attacking. The move paid off and it works,” he added.
“I felt he’s there physically there to help out and he is strong in the air. He can hold the ball and wait for teammates to support and he caused the Selangor defence some problems.
“He got the free kick and scored that goal. Before that he had one good chance if he had scored it could have been different against a quality side.”
