Singapore coach Aide Iskandar has taken responsibility over his team’s failure to make the cut for semi-finals of the men’s football event at the SEA Games this year.
This follows their 1-0 loss to Indonesia in the final Group A match last night at the Jalan Besar Stadium.
At the post match press conference tonight, Aide just gave a statement and refused to take any questions.
“The journey has been long with the team being built from two years ago. I am thankful to those who have made this possible among them Zainuddin Nordin, the president of the FA of Singapore and also Winston Lee, the general secretary of the FAS.
I would also like to thank Mindef (Ministry of Defence) for allowing the players time off to train in Europe since six months ago.
But we tried our best and do the best possible for team Singapore even though we lost two players to injuries at the start of our campaign.
We beat the Philippines in our first match but lost narrowly to Myanmar. We then beat Cambodia to set up our game against Indonesia tonight.
We did not start Faris (Ramli) because he has a pull in his hamstring while Irfan (Fandi) has a flu. It was tough to play when you are 1-0 down and also a man down.
Some fans were heckling the players but I appreciate the work of the media who had stood behind the team regardless.
I told the players that I have quit. They still have a long journey ahead pf them.”
RESULTS
Laos 1 Malaysia 3
Singapore 0 Indonesia 1
GROUP A FINAL STANDINGS
| No. | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| 1 | MYANMAR | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 14 | 7 | +7 | 10 |
| 2 | INDONESIA | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 5 | +6 | 9 |
| 3 | SINGAPORE | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 4 | +1 | 6 |
| 4 | CAMBODIA | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 13 | -5 | 4 |
| 5 | PHILIPPINES | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 11 | -9 | 0 |
GROUP B FINAL STANDINGS
| No. | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
| 1 | THAILAND | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 1 | +15 | 15 |
| 2 | VIETNAM | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 4 | +13 | 12 |
| 3 | MALAYSIA | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 9 |
| 4 | LAOS | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 13 | -7 | 6 |
| 5 | TIMOR LESTE | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 10 | -6 | 3 |
| 6 | BRUNEI | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 17 | -15 | 0 |
* Teams in bold qualify for semi-finals
