A 47th-minute goal by Dutch-born attacking midfielder Ragnar Oratmangoen and a second yellow card for Singapore midfielder Song Ui-young shortly after looked to have extinguished Singapore’s hopes of reaching the knockout stages of the ASEAN Championship.
But after an on-field review saw Song’s second yellow rescinded, the hosts rode the momentum, with red-hot Ilhan Fandi popping up with the crucial equaliser just six minutes later, his third goal of the tournament.
“Amazing, it’s an extra push, and we have to give thanks to the fans. Hopefully, against Thailand it will be an amazing one as well. It’s a really proud moment for us,” said Ilhan, crediting the support around him and his teammates for helping Singapore dig deep for the leveller to go through to the semi-finals at the expense of Indonesia on Friday (Aug 7).
The fiery encounter between both sides ended 1-1, Singapore taking second spot on eight points with two wins and two draws, just one more than the Garudas (two wins, one draw and one loss).
If the unbeaten group stage campaign for the unfancied Lions has taught the squad anything, it is the power of belief.
“We have gone through a lot, and I think everyone knows that about Singapore football. All of us have that same goal, to see the fans have a national team they can be proud of, and when we step onto that field, that’s our mindset,” said player of the match Jacob Mahler, who recovered from an early slip-up to put in an assured and dogged display at the heart of defence.
Lee also echoed the defender’s sentiments, saying, “I think this group of players never really had a lot of belief from the outside. If we don’t believe in ourselves, then no one would really.”
“We knew that the stadium was going to be full, a lot of people coming down here with the new kit, and we really wanted to give everybody another nice memory, and I think tonight we managed to do that. I think a lot of people went home happy. The way they sang ‘Home’ at the end was amazing,” he added, referring to the Singapore faithful’s heartwarming rendition of the National Day classic after the match just two days before the nation’s birthday.
In front of a packed Jalan Besar Stadium with 5,113 supporters, going a goal and a man down on the hour mark looked to have destined the hosts for elimination, with a flurry of protests directed at the referee’s decision.
But after VAR (Video Assistant Referee)’s intervention, the stadium erupted into its loudest cheers of the night. The Singapore players regrouped and breathed new life into their search for the all-important equaliser, which they duly found before clinging on for the result.
“I told them to stop complaining and just stay calm… For us, we just had to remain calm enough to give the team the best support that they needed in the moment, and I saw Hariss (and the others) calming each other down, and so they were self-regulating, so that made it a little bit easier,” Lee explained after the controversial sending-off.
With one Group B match left to play, the Lions will take on the group winners, with Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia still in contention. Thailand currently leads the race on nine points with a superior goal difference of +8.
“We just want to keep giving people more of such positive memories, and then grow with them, as well as we are on this journey towards the Asian Cup,” Lee added as they prepare and recover ahead of a two-legged semi-final with matches next Friday (Aug 15) and Tuesday (Aug 18).
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s head coach John Herdman cut a disappointed figure as he fielded questions from the media after their disappointing elimination.
“We’re going to have to wait for our first trophy, but… the FIFA ASEAN Cup will be a great opportunity for us to step forward and take the learnings from this tournament, and dealing with tough matches and tough referees is part of the learning for sure,” the Englishman said.
“Mistakes have cost us in this tournament — little errors. But you won’t see them in September and October. We’ll have that cleaned up, and we’ll be coming with a completely new fire. We can’t wait to play Singapore again,” he added, issuing a rally cry to his understandably crestfallen charges ahead of the FIFA ASEAN Cup.
