I guess most of you have heard about the S League match between Singapore Young Lions vs Beijing Guoan on 8 Sep 2010 that end up in a nasty fight. If you haven’t, here’s the video of the fight. (PS: There’s some problem with the video for the first 9 seconds)

We don’t know what happen before the fight. Reports says that Beijing Guoan team was playing a very rough game. Well, what do you expected from a team that has already collected 6 red cards and 53 yellow cards for the season?

A lot of Singaporeans are defending the Young Lions online. After watching the video, I don’t know if I can join them and defend the Young Lions. OK, the player from Beijing Guoan is wrong for the super late tackle. But the referee saw it and pulled out a yellow card straight away (although I felt it should be a red). But 2 Young Lions player ran towards the offender and started pulling his shirt. What’s that for? Yes, that Beijing Guoan player did the late tackle on purpose and walk away in a very guai lan way. So what is the big deal about that? They don’t have sportmanship. They play rough. They are unprofessional. But does that mean you have to go down to their level?

Watch the video at 2:17 mark. At the right hand side, we see a Young Lion player (Jersey Number 5) hitting a Beijing Guoan player. Another Young Lion pulled the Beijing Guoan player away to break up the fight. Good move. But if you follow Jersey Number 5 closely, you will notice that he did not stop fighting. Instead, he went on the chase another Beijing Guoan player and got into another fight. And Temasek Review only showed this photo of him being beaten by a Beijing Guoan player.

Next, let’s watch the video at the 2:28 mark. There’s lots of fighting around. But if you look closely at the middle of the screen, we see a Beijing Guoan player on the ground and a Young Lion kicking that player. I can’t see the Jersey number clearly due to the low quality of the video. Look, kicking someone who is already on the ground is the most dirty move and you should be ashamed of yourself. But lucky for him, his kick wasn’t the most nasty one. Few seconds later, a Beijing Guoan player kicked the head of a Young Lion when he is on the ground. I’m sure most of you have seen the pictures on Temasek Review. Strangely, why didn’t we get to see the picture of the young lion kicking the Beijing Guoan player?

I don’t care what Beijing Guoan did before or during the fight. That is their country, their city and their culture. They disgraced all the Chinese people. That is their business. But The Young Lions is a disgrace to Singapore. The Young Lions is a Singapore Team. A number of them will end up in the National Team representing Singapore in international competition. The word “Lions” is a term we use for our National Soccer Team. If they want to call themselves The Young Lions, they need to live up to the name. They need to have a certain level of sportmanship, honor and professionalism. Sadly, I didn’t see any in the video. All I see is a bunch of kids fighting in a soccer pitch. As a Singaporean, I wish I could defend The Young Lions on my blog entry. But I can’t. This incident is a disgrace to Singapore and Singapore sporting scene. Are they fit to call themselves “Young Lions”.

As for the Beijing Guoan team, I think the name itself is a disgrace to the whole Chinese population. 6 red cards and 53 yellow cards in a season (and the season isn’t over yet). That is really a record. I wonder why FIFA and FAS didn’t do anything about this low grade team. But hey, if FIFA or FAS ban the whole team, the team can switch to wrestling instead. The players are pretty good at punching and kicking opponents. I don’t need to go into the details here. You can see it clearly on the video.

And as for S League, what the F are you doing? Why is there such a low grade team in the league?

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