Gamel’s men go down again
The Vodafone Fijian national football team went down 2-0 to Singapore at Bishan Stadium in Singapore on Tuesday.
Fiji is currently ranked 165th while Singapore is 169th .
Singapore captain Hariss Harun broke the deadlock in the 11th minute and Ikhsan Fandi added a second barely 60 seconds later.
Coach Christophe Gamel was satisfied enough with their performance but acknowledged the gulf in quality.
“Playing against professional players, I think we managed really well,” Gamel said on Fiji FA website. “We knew that Singapore is very fast and the last 10 minutes, we started to go down (deteriorate) physically as Singapore is a good team.” Under Gamel, drew 0-0 with
Singapore last September and suffered narrow losses to Malaysia (1-0 in July), Philippines (3-2 in March) and drew 1-1 with Solomon Islands at the ANZ Stadium last month. According to Football In Oceania, all it took was one minute lapse in concentration for Fiji to lose. Singapore made Fiji scramble a clearance to a corner after 11 minutes and the following set piece saw Harun rise above everyone else and head the home side in the lead.
Then straight from the kickoff Singapore got the ball back and a wonderful pass from Gabriel Quak found Fandi who raced through on goal and made no mistake alone with the goalkeeper. But it was Fiji who should have taken the lead. Vodafone Fiji captain Roy Krishna found himself through on goal but from five metres his effort was too soft and the Singapore goalkeeper saved the effort.
Then Singapore took over the play after a strong opening from Fiji and scored their two goals.
After that it seemed like it was over for most of the game. Singapore kept possession but couldn’t create much.
Fiji threatened on a few occasions but none as big as the chance Krishna had in the first minute of play.
Four minutes from fulltime Kolino Sivoki clattered into the back of a Singaporean defender and got a red card to end a frustrating evening for Fiji.
The attack lacked a little bit of creativity, but defensively it was quite solid bar that one minute of collective lapse of concentration. But it was a win that Singapore deserved, their first win by more than one goal in three years.