THEY came in droves to the National Stadium, anticipating a celebration.

Instead, local fans in the 55,000-strong crowd at Sunday's Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup semi-final between Singapore and Vietnam were left bitterly disappointed.

The Lions dominated, but failed to make their chances count and fell 0-1, ending their reign as two-time defending
champions.

On Sgclub.com, wind07 wrote: "Singapore deserve to lose against Vietnam. They simply didn't turn up for both the
first-leg and second-leg matches. So disappointed."

On HardwareZone, bEar lambasted the Lions as "playing more like the Jan Poulsen 2002 batch, who think they owned the opposition by wearing fancy boots like Mercurial Vapour or Predator".

Singapore had infamously lost 0-4 to Malaysia at the same venue under coach Poulsen in the 2002 edition of the Cup.

Striker Noh Alam Shah was singled out for fire, especially since he had promised to deliver goals.

WroteNHT on theHardware-Zone forum: "The players talked so big before the match, especially Alam Shah. But in the end, they played like ****."

Many users called for massive improvement in all Singapore players before they would consider supporting them again.

But GrimaH wrote on HardwareZone: "It could be said that the Viets won the match, rather than Singapore losing it. The public's response is childishly negative."

Yet it is clear the loss was hard to swallow, seeing how critics far outnumbered sympathisers.

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