MANILA, Philippines - Fil-Briton Chris Greatwich struck for the equalizer in injury time as the Philippines rallied to a stunning 1-all draw against fancied Singapore at the start of the Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup at the My Dinh Stadium in Hanoi, Vietnam Thursday.
Recalled to the team only last Monday, the 27-year-old veteran midfielder made the most of the opportunity with a left-footed blast from a James Younghusband cross four minutes into injury time of the match.
The Lions, three-time winners of the AFF men’s championship, seized the lead on naturalized Serbian striker Aleksandar Duric’s header in the 64th minute.
But the Filipino booters refused to give up and kept up the pressure until they were amply rewarded with the tying marker despite Singapore’s early dominance.
“Now they can see that we are no longer pushovers,” said team manager Dan Palami. “Before the game, people here were talking about how many goals they (Singapore) would score against us. Now everybody is taking notice.”
The charges of British coach Simon McMenemy actually thought of an upset of sorts against a Singaporean squad ranked No. 127 in the latest FIFA world rankings, 25 places higher than their rivals, who are at No. 152.
Both sides gained a point each from the draw, leaving host and defending champion Vietnam on top with three points after thrashing Myanmar, 7-1, in the other match.
The Filipinos play the Vietnamese tomorrow.
Neil Etheridge proved solid in front of goal, while Rob Gier, Aly Borromeo, Anton del Rosario and Ray Johnson thwarted wave after wave of attack as the Filipinos survived without conceding a goal in the first half.
The Fulham keeper made at least three brilliant saves against Singapore striker Noh Alam Shah and Del Rosario was quick to clear a Shahril Bin Ashak’s saved shot that was headed for goal in the 40th minute.
Phil Younghusband was a constant threat on attack throughout the game and he brilliantly set up Chieffy Caligdong in the 60th minute, only for the winger to have his shot go wide to the left in what was the Filipinos’ best chance up until that point.
The deadlock was finally broken four minutes later when Alam Shah, breaking free on the right flank, floated a teasing lob for the 40-year-old Duric to slot home past Etheridge.
All seemed lost when Singapore milked the clock in the waning minutes until Greatwich, who was unavailable for the Suzuki Cup qualifiers in Laos last month, struck the goal for the country.
Phil found James cutting to the left flank and the older of the two brothers delivered a dangerous ball that was met by Greatwich, who scored easily one of the biggest goals in the country’s football history.
“We just worked on trying to make ourselves very difficult to beat because we know we always carry the threat,” said McMenemy afterwards. “We worked very hard to keep our shape to keep our discipline and we got lucky with a couple of minutes to go. The passion of these boys shown is just unbelievable.”
“Congratulations to the Philippines because they fought for 90 minutes and took two points away from us,” said Raddy Avramovic, Singapore’s Serbian coach, at the post-match briefing in Hanoi.