Singapore 1 – Oman 4

I am not stunned at all at the result: Singapore 1 – Oman 4.

Seriously, our ‘professional’ footballers are living in a lucid dream of glory after all these years, and to think that a campaign, Goal 2010, was put out years back to enhance our chance of getting a slot at the South Africa 2010 World Cup, it’s embarassing.

Big, fat, dreams.

As sponsors and fan turnouts dried up, so did the dream of watching Singaporeans playing at the world cup finals.

Okay, so we tried and indeed we have to dream big to achieve big things, but sooner or later, you’ll always have to wake up.

Unless FAS or whoever it is that takes the lead in building up the quality of our players and our game by sending a team to recce how the real professionals do it in Europe (it’s gonna be costly of course), and until then Singapore’s football will probably never evolve from it’s current pitiful state of ‘schoolboy soccer’.

‘Schoolboy soccer’ is a state of mentality whereby players aren’t proactive enough to think on their own and instead wait and hope for others to make the difference, while lamenting at their current sorry state or finding glory at their newfound status as a ‘Pro’ player, thinking they’ve made it and then stop developing or improving themselves.

But thankfully there are players that take initiative and seek to improve themselves and their game.

These players try, and try, and try and try, but sometimes along the way, a better opponent comes along and you’ll simply have to concede defeat — but not without trying of course.

So Iran is next on Singapore’s schedule (6th Jan), but they thrashed us convincingly by 6 goals to 1, earlier in the round robin league, so it’s going to be a tough game.

Perhaps there’s still a chance for Singapore to qualify for the Asian games, by holding out for a draw or beating the Iranians on home turf.

Beating them, sounds like a really long shot, and holding out for a draw seems achievable, by our standards (and thankfully the wet weather too).

But seriously, I really don’t mind if we end up losing the game, just as long as we don’t lose it by playing with 10 men setting up camp and bonfires in the penalty box.

Now that’s just wrong.