AFF Suzuki Cup 2008

the winner of thailand-indonesia match will become champions... i got great faith for this hehe

looks to be Singapore vs Thailand once again.

I don't follow Singapore football hence cannot comment much on them.

But here's an interesting tidbit - Thailand have captured the SEA Games gold-medal seven consecutive times but cannot translate that form into the AFC Cup which is effectively held the following year to the SEA Games.

Any thoughts?

since 2001 SEA games only allowed U23 players to participate... so it's a different team... the national team only competing in the AFF/Tiger/Suzuki Cup...

sylus tung wrote:

I don't follow Singapore football hence cannot comment much on them.

But here's an interesting tidbit - Thailand have captured the SEA Games gold-medal seven consecutive times but cannot translate that form into the AFC Cup which is effectively held the following year to the SEA Games.

Any thoughts?

Singapore is able to entice geriatric foreign mercenaries to switch allegiances but is less successful at enticing young foreigners who still have hopes of representing their home countries.

To wit, compare the number of foreign born players in the senior squad vs the young lions.

@ berserk, good point actually.

Singapore is doing 3 times what Japan used to do in the 90s only on a more blatant and outrageous scale.

I guess in the world of professional sports these days, patriotic allegiances do not count as much as the dollars and cents.

Not that there's anything wrong with getting some foreign assistance if its a few players. Singapore & Qatar have taken it a bit too far though.

Imagine if Philemom Chepita & another of the Perlis africans (who were there many years) had been granted Malaysian PR/citizenship, we would have been a much more competitive side instead of the current sad state.

not to defend Qatar or anything, but if you see the population constitution of Qatar, you will know why they opt for outsiders. more than 60% of current Qatar population is outsiders...meaning less than half are Qatari themselves! not only that, pure qatari would be very proud of themselves and their family and stuff like that, so they will most probably indulge in business and easy-gained high position in the government. i guess this would explain the lack of pure Qatari in the national team football..

but one thing i notice about foreigners here....when they gain PR or citizenship from Qatar, they are so patriotic! Qatar's national day is just a few days away, and people would go to the extend of spraying their car with black paint just to write the word"QATAR". and you can see people like Lebanese, Jordanian, and even some black guys waving the Qatari flag around.

Totally agree on the foreign talent thing.

Abit different to the topic but similar in nature - even the English Premier League is feeling the after-effects from the European Union's liberalisation of cross-border work restrictions.

EU regulations state that any citizen from any of the member states can work in any of the other member states without a requirement of a visa. In fact, there is no need for a passport to travel within the EU. With this, more and more talented footballers are moving to the EPL because of the exposure and the money. European foreign talent is forcing out the homegrown English talent down towards the lower leagues like the Championship or League 1.

Looking at the Top Four English teams, how many star players are there even forming the backbone of the England squad? The English frontline is currently led by Emile Heskey from Wigan Athletic and partnered by Wayne Rooney.

Th vs Vt in the final. 1st leg in Bangkok on 24/12, 2nd leg in Hanoi on 28/12.