Football: Singapore beat Maldives 3-1 in friendly ahead of crucial Asian Cup qualifier

SINGAPORE: Singapore ended a six-match winless run on Thursday (Jun 5) when they beat Maldives 3-1 in an international friendly ahead of a crunch Asian Cup qualifier against Bangladesh.

At the Bishan Stadium, three first-half headers from Amirul Adli and an Ikhsan Fandi double put the Lions in the lead, before a late penalty from Ahmed Rizuvan reduced the deficit.

Singapore are three spots above the 164th-ranked Maldives in the FIFA world rankings.

The win will be a confidence boost for the Lions, who will face Bangladesh in their second 2027 Asian Cup third-round group C qualifier in Dhaka on Jun 10. 

Singapore are grouped with Hong Kong, India and Bangladesh in the third round of the Asian Cup qualifiers. Each of the six group leaders will qualify for the 2027 Asian Cup.

Tsutomu Ogura’s men only managed a 0-0 home draw against Hong Kong in March, while Bangladesh also held India to a goalless draw.

The Lions have never qualified for the Asian Cup on merit, with Singapore's only appearance coming as hosts in 1984.

Prior to Thursday's friendly, Singapore's last competitive win was a 3-0 victory over Timor Leste at the ASEAN football championship in December last year.

Speaking at a post-match press conference, Ogura said that his team had control of the game up to the 60th minute, but needed to tighten up defensively ahead of next Tuesday's game.

The home side took an early lead in the eighth minute, courtesy of a header from Amirul after a looping corner from Song Ui-young.

Ikhsan, back in the international fold after injuries, doubled the lead 13 minutes later after he pounced on poor marking to thump a header home off a Harhys Stewart cross. The powerful striker got his second in the 32nd minute after a good delivery from Song off a free-kick.

"I'm very happy to be back, very honoured to be playing with the national team again," Ikhsan told CNA.

"The national team is a different vibe, different environment and playing for your country is something special. So I always give extra."

But the Maldives were not without threat, as Ali Fasir beat goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud but not the crossbar with a powerful shot just before the half.

Singapore came out after the interval looking sharper and could have gone four goals up in the 50th minute. Tidy play from substitute Kyoga Nakamura saw him dink a ball to Ikhsan, but the striker headed over.

Nakamura was at the heart of all things good for Singapore and it was his ball across the box which found Faris Ramli, but the winger could only blaze over the crossbar.

As the Lions lost steam at the end, Rizuvan sent Izwan the wrong way from the penalty spot.

"The first thing right now is to recover. All the players that played a lot of minutes, we need to recover quickly. And then by tomorrow, we need to switch our mindset to the Bangladesh game," said Ikhsan.

"We cannot underestimate them. It's going to be a hostile environment. We had very good moments today and also a few poor moments - so we need to fix those. But I believe we have what it takes to get a good result there."