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Dust is now beginning to settle on the Lions’ ultimately unsuccessful 2011 Asian Cup qualification. The unsavoury media reports on the indiscipline of the Lions leading up to the crucial Group game in Jordan had turned a few heads in the local media and a few others journalists had expressed their utter disappointment on the circumstances that led to the defeat.

However, like everything in life, the Lions’ performance throughout the qualifying campaign must be taken into perspective.

Ultimately, success is relative, especially in sports – where no one team can win matches without someone else losing.

With that in mind, the editorial team had decided to access the development and relative success (or lack of) of our national team since 2000. For the purpose of analysis, four other regional national teams are selected as benchmarks, namely Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. Besides our geographical ties, these four teams are by and large considered on par with the Lions.

The Ingredients

The best chefs in the world will agree that the best dishes require the best ingredients. At international level, the most successful national teams are relatively populous nations where football had been embedded into their history for over a hundred years. The past five different winners of the World Cup prove this – Italy (60million), Brazil (192m), France (65m), Germany (82m) and Argentina (40m).

Apologies for stating the obvious, but this is where Singapore is in an extremely disadvantageous position. Our population is only about 2% of Indonesia’s and 6% of Vietnam’s. Because of this, our domestic league is relatively smaller in size and hence the estimated pool of professional players whom our national coach can choose from is relatively smaller.

For the sake of comparison, it should be noted that we also do not have a huge pool of players who are based overseas (unlike a nation of similar size like the Republic of Ireland, where they have large numbers of players based in England).

Table 1

** Average number of registered players less foreigners of all local teams in top flight.

International Stage

With that in mind, we will be looking at our showing at the international stage over the past ten years.

In terms of FIFA world ranking, Singapore fared relatively no different from our rivals, with the exception of Thailand. Like Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, Singapore has achieved the highest FIFA ranking of mid-70s and is currently ranking outside the top 100.

Another acid test to judge the Lions’ performance is qualification in continental competitions and for the World Cup.

For qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, all five nations in question were eliminated in the 2nd round. Thailand came the closest, finishing third in their group and four points away from qualification for the next round. Singapore finished 15 points away from progress.

The 2007 Asian Cup was not a fair gauge as our rivals all qualified as co-hosts, while Singapore missed out, finishing 7 points from progress.

For the 2010 World Cup qualification, Singapore was arguably the best performer in the region. We finished third in a tough group in the 3^rd third round, nine points from progress. Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam were all eliminated before this round and Thailand was bottom of their group.

And for the most recent qualification campaign, Singapore was just two points from qualification and again, only Thailand fared slightly better. The other three nations were no where near qualifying.

Besides showing that the Lions had fared better than average in qualification campaigns, it is interesting to note the overall progress which the team had enjoyed over the course of the last four qualification campaigns. The Lions were perennial whipping boys before, but our past two qualification campaigns had proven that the team can go out to win a couple of games and seriously challenge.

 Table 2

Regional Supremacy

Another way to look at success is to look at how you have performed against your rivals directly. Two regional competitions to analyse this is of course the ASEAN Championship (previously Tiger Cup) and the SEA Games.

In this aspect, Singapore is clearly number two in the region, with Thailand being the dominant force over the last ten years or so. In terms of victories in the ASEAN championships, we are tied at three-all with the Thais, though they have clearly performed much better in the SEA Games tournaments (which feature the U23 teams since 2001).

All FIFA ‘A’ listed games between Singapore and the regional rivals since 2000 had also been compiled. It is interesting to note that only Vietnam has a better head-to-head record against the Lions. We have beaten Thailand four times in the past decade and they had only come up tops thrice.

 Table 3

Table 4 – Singapore head-to-head vs regional rivals

The decade ahead

Statistically, it must be said that the Singapore national team had outperformed our regional rivals since 2000, with the exception of perhaps Thailand. However, the Thais had been the traditional powerhouse for a long time and our recent records do suggest that we can match them.

The decade ahead will be the team’s chance to usurp the Thais as the dominant force in South East Asia and then move on to conquer bigger things.

From now till the end of this year, the Lions will have all the time in the world to prepare for the ASEAN championship, which will be held in Vietnam and Indonesia (knock-out stages will be two-legged). It is fair to say that the Lions need a strong performance in that competition to brush aside any doubts in the media which may be still lingering by then.

Other articles on the Lions:

Singapore National Football Team Saga: Straits Times article VS Avramovic’s subsequent clarification

Heartbreak for Lions

Lions on the verge of making history

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