Singapore 0 - Australia 0

"I never could count", admitted Socceroos' coach Pim Verbeek, when asked which members of his team against Singapore would be moving on to China

He said 'seven of them' and then went on to name nine.

Ante Covic, 'the whole back line', Jade North, Michael Beauchamp, Nikolai Topor-Stanley, Adam Griffiths, Harry Kewell, Bruce Djite, Archie Thompson and Mark Bridge.

Australia did not really impress against a Singapore side missing at least two key players and having others under an injury cloud.

The game, played on a pitch that stood up remarkably well, given that all around the stadium the roads, footpaths and grass verges were drowning in rainwater, after a typical 4pm Singapore storm, was certainly playable and there was some decent and at times exciting football played by both teams.

"For the first 75 minutes I thought we did very well," said Verbeek, "but the last 15 were not so good for us.

"In the end a draw was a good result for both sides. It was a good test.

"I was pleased with the younger players, those making their debut, especially, considering they had not played a serious game for three or four weeks.

Asked if he could single out players who had done well, he mentioned Central Coast Mariners' Mile Jedinak.

"Mile played well; I was not surprised by how well he played, though, as I have seen him play for his club for some time now.

"I am not going to talk about China today," he said. "We are going there to win, that's all I want to say."

Singapore's former Australian striker, Aleksandar Duric, was a threat at times to the Australian defence and his half time replacement, Agu Casmir, also caused some problems for the Socceroos' defence.

Lions' captain, Indra Sahdan crashed a volley against the Australian bar after only 11 minutes

Duric set up Shi Jiayi for a strong chance after 19 minutes and the former Chinese player sent his shot into the side netting.

Mile Jedinak sent a fine free kick goal-wards, in the ninth minute, but Singapore keeper, Lionel Lewis, got down well to make the save.

Later in the match Lewis, under an injury cloud through a long standing back complaint, dived full length to save from a 35-yarder by Topor-Stanley.

Lewis also saved well from Bruce Djite at his near post, on the hour mark.

Singapore had two late chances to embarrass their opponents, Juma'at Jantan shooting too straight to trouble Ante Covic and Fazrul Nawaz being denied by a tackle in the box in stoppage time.

Australia having taken off Harry Kewell and Mark Bridge at half time brought on Nathan Burns and Bruce Djite.

Socceroo squad members - Ruben Zadkovich, Nikita Rukavytsya and Nigel Boogaard - never had a chance to show what they could do, while Billy Celeski was unavailable.

Singapore striker Khairul Amri was injured as was Ismail Yunos, both of whom were named on the bench.

"Who was their number ten?," Lions' coach Raddy Avramovic jokingly asked the media after the match.

"It was not easy to play against Australia, but in the first half we played some lovely diagonal passes that we had worked on at training and on a dry pitch I am sure those passes would have proven very dangerous to the Australian defence.

Avramovic said he did not know yet how key midfielder Fahrudin Mustafic came through the game after being injured and while he was pleased with his keeper Lionel Lewis for his saves his distribution was not so pleasing.

The coach could not bring Lewis off as he had already used his six agreed substitutes.


Written by Paul Goodwin