S'pore, Vietnam notch up first wins in Tiger Cup
S'pore, Vietnam notch up first wins in Tiger Cup
HANOI (AP): Singapore beat Malaysia 2-0 and Vietnam downed Laos 4-1 yesterday as the eight-nation Tiger Cup soccer competition kicked off with the grandest display of pageantry ever staged here.
The Tiger Cup is a regional competition in which Thailand is the highest-ranked team at No. 45 in the world. But it is the biggest international sports event to come to Vietnam, and excitement bubbled over everywhere.
Top officials, including the prime minister and the Communist Party chief, were on hand in Hanoi's 20,000-seat stadium, which had just undergone a US$400,000 upgrade.
The opening ceremonies, delayed until the break between games for prime-time TV coverage in Southeast Asia, blended youth, women dancing in traditional costumes, miniature hot-air balloons flaming into the night sky and a laser light show.
With the World Cup theme song blaring, the standing-room-only crowd went home happy after seeing the home team, which had not fared well in warmup matches, down overmatched but spunky Laos.
Nguyen Hong Son and Nguyen Van Sy each scored in the first half, but Keolakhone Channiphone pulled Laos with 2-1 in the 60th minute. Le Huynh Duc then clinched the victory for Vietnam with a pair of goals in the last five minutes.
In the Group B opener, Mohammed Rafi Bin Mohammed Ali and Ahmad Latiff Bin Kamaruddin each scored in the first half, and Singapore's defense stymied Malaysia's lackluster attack.
Group A competition starts today in Ho Chi Minh City when Indonesia plays the Philippines, followed by Thailand against Myanmar. The finals are Sept. 5 with first-place prize money of $80,000.
Soccer is a national obsession here, so even though the gates didn't open until 2 p.m., people with general-admission tickets began packing an adjacent street in early morning so they could grab prime spots.
Two hours before the first kickoff, entire sections already had filled up. Thousands of other fans milled around outside the stadium, many painting their faces with the gold-star-on-red Vietnamese flag.
Capitalism, at its best and worst, was in evidence everywhere in the heart of the communist country.
Virtually every nearby home was turned into a makeshift outdoor cafe. One vendor said she had sold nearly 100 small Vietnamese flags in the first hour. Parking was going for triple the rate for a regular match.
Despite a heavy police presence, scalpers operated openly, seeking 150,000 dong ($10.70) - a huge amount in a country with an average annual per-capita income of about $300 - for a 65,000 dong ($4.64 ticket).
Only 3,000 tickets are being made available for each match to the general public; the rest have been allocated to government departments and agencies.
Metal detectors were in use at each entrance to help enforce a ban on cans and bottles. Drinks were poured into plastic bags with straws.
During the six-week World Cup - a tournament for which Vietnam has never qualified - the country nearly shut down as people stayed up to 4 a.m. to watch matches live. Streets that normally would be bustling on a Saturday night were deserted.