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March 2004

It has begun the World Cup Qualifiers are well under way and the long road to Germany has started, of course there will be a lot of hope, joy, and of course disappointment along the way. Our campaign here in India has started off with a win over Singapore a hard fought 1-0 win and as things stand we top the group!!

Its 1-0 as Renedy Singh scores the only goal of the game to give us the win.

The build up to the game was exciting as the fans in Goa really got into the World Cup fever and come game time there were 45,000 of them packed into the Nehru Stadium creating a great atmosphere.

I thought we started really well and should have taken the lead early on, however a number of missed chances left the score goalless as the teams went in at half time. We started off well in the second half and were awarded a penalty after Asim Biswas was brought down in the box. There were protests that a Singapore defender was fouled prior to that but the penalty I think was clear! Well I would say that right? Actually I could not see from where I was standing but by all accounts and from many of the Singapore team it was a penalty. We then missed several more chances before Singapore found a second wind and really applied the pressure in the last 10-15 minutes, in the end though we hung to the lead and got the three points.

It is a great way to begin and with Oman narrowly losing 1-0 in Japan it set’s up our next game with Oman very nicely. Oman are a very good side and under my college Milan Macala are improving all the time, they will be a very big test for us and hopefully we can give another good account of ourselves in Kochin where the game will be played.

Another plus was the performance of our U19s who went to Thailand for the BIMST Cup and after some good performances went down 0-1 in the final losing to Myanmar, the highlight however was beating the hosts Thailand 3-0 in there own back yard! Our youngsters have come a long way and that team will represent us in the up coming SAF Games to be held in Pakistan next month.

Finally I have received some many emails from many of you and I would just like to thank all of for taking the time to write

Well that’s all for now and as always my best wishes go out to all of you.

Stephen