Sports Minutes: Will the Lions get the National Day celebrations started with AFF Championship qualification?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Sports Minutes with Zia-ul Raushan on MoneyFM 89.3.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (0:09)
That's absolutely right, Lions, we are counting on you. MoneyFM 89.3, it's time for Sports Minutes with me, Zia-ul Raushan, as all roads point towards the Jalan Besar Stadium on the 7th of August, when our Lions take on Indonesia in their final AFF Group Stage game, with qualification to the semi-finals on the line.
And to look ahead to that pivotal clash, I'm in the company of the one and only Deepanraj Ganesan. Deepan, welcome to the show, how are you doing?

**Deepanraj Ganesan** (0:37)
Hi Raushan, always good to come on the show when it's positive things to talk about, and here we are to talk about as we get quite close to the semi-finals of the ASEAN Championship.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (0:48)
Can't promise you it's all going to be positive, because I'll be testing your ball knowledge as this show goes on, but first, let's talk about the latest news, we are recording this obviously on a Tuesday, the day after Indonesia lost 3-0 to the reigning AFF Champions Vietnam. I know you caught that game, your thoughts on the match?

**Deepanraj Ganesan** (1:05)
Yeah, I think it's not a surprise that Vietnam won, I think we have a habit of sometimes analyzing results and not performances. I actually thought that Vietnam were a very good team against Singapore, just that they didn't get the result. I saw enough to suggest that they will be too good for Indonesia, and that's what the result panned out to be.
I think also people shouldn't walk away from this game thinking that our Indonesia team is easy to beat. I just think it's the quality of Vietnam that showed in the end, where they were clinical here, but not so much against Singapore.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (1:39)
Yeah, they certainly weren't at their clinical best against Singapore, and I'm fully aware hindsight is a wonderful, wonderful thing. But does Gavin deserve some praise in terms of how he set out the team in that 0-0 draw?

**Deepanraj Ganesan** (1:51)
Yeah, of course. I think, while I say that, I still thought that we were quite lucky to walk away with a point from the game. I mean, you just need to look at the opening 30 minutes, where we were very fortunate not to go, at least go behind. And then if one goal went in, and then as they say, the floodgates have opened and then more would have come in, right? But you've got to praise Gavin and his coaching staff direction in terms of how they kept the ball in the second half. And once they were in it at 0-0, I think there was every chance that they could go on and win the game, which they almost could have, right? I mean, a lot of chances in the second half that went begging.
So in terms of the approach, I thought that was the best they could do. The last thing you want to do is have a high line and sort of play into Vietnam's hands, which is somewhat what Indonesia did in the game against Vietnam. So I would say in terms of tactical approach, it was the best that we could do and kudos to Gavin for that. And the players as well because you needed effort, you needed to put your body in the line, which a lot of our players did, Lionel, Jacob, Haris, Noah Adam, a lot of standout performances. And we got the draw in the end.

**Zia-ul Raushan** (2:59)
Deepan, me and you are in various different group chats. I think in one of them, you mentioned the fact that we finished strong. And if not for Shawal Anwar blasting it over, we could be talking about a very different prospect. But nonetheless, social media, the era that we live in is filled with armchair critics. Everyone has an opinion and they have a platform to share it, right? I'm of the opinion that winning is the only currency that matters in tournament football. Good football isn't exactly a currency. Where do you stand?

**Deepanraj Ganesan** (3:25)
I think context matters. And in this tournament, you have to see that this is a tournament that's a preparation for the Asian Cup. You're playing against teams that are not quite at their best. I mean, with the exception of Vietnam, of course. You're playing against essentially an Indonesian B team. You're looking at the other group where Thailand have brought their C team almost to the tournament. So you cannot just judge it based on results and progression. You've got to look at how are they preparing? How are they sort of shaping up? Is it something that we can build on for the Asian Cup? And that's why before the tournament started, I pointed out that the ASEAN Championship has lost its stardom. By the very same time, we shouldn't be sort of drawing conclusions from the results and the progression here.