The Canon Lion City Cup is one of the oldest and prestigious youth football competition with the roots dating back to 1977. For a football fan in Singapore, I remembered growing up watching local football heroes such as Fandi Ahmad and V.Sundramoorty in the Malaysia Cup. The Lion City Cup was where our local football heroes such as Fandi and Sundram were unearthed.
Watching the Canon Lion City Cup for the past 2 years, 2011 and 2012, they were great and exciting to watch them in action, even though it was a youth football competition. Our local boys definitely benefited from playing with their counterparts from different continents, Europe, England and South America, and they will get more football experiences by playing with different opponents. During the matches, we can see the local boys playing their hearts, pride and passion out against their counterparts (that maybe more technically talented and physically bigger in size than them). I believed that our local boys playing in front of their home crowds at Jalan Besar Stadium, with the local Lions supporters cheering for them, played their hearts out even bigger.
I went to the opening matches on Day 1, watching from the Grandstand of Jalan Besar Stadium. While our local boys lost to their opponents, we take pride that they played with guts and went all out. Shooting from the Grandstand was going to be interesting since we are not really at the ground level of the field and there were more obstructions too. Nevertheless, I had a fun time shooting football matches from a different perspective. On the final day, I managed to gain access with a media pass from Canon Singapore via Canon EOS World and I was able to shoot the Canon Lion City Cup 2013 Finals between PSV versus Corinthians and Singapore NFA U16 versus Singapore U15. I have always loved sports photography and it was awesome to shoot from the sidelines since my stint in 2011 shooting Canon Lion Cup 2011 from the sidelines with the media pass. I confessed that I was a bit rusty in shooting football matches and it took me some time during the match playing time to adjust and adapt again into a sports photographer for football matches. The Canon Lion City Cup Final 2013 played between PSV and Corinthians were evenly matched and great to watch. For a football fan and sports photographer at the same time, I do face the dilemma when I was watching the match from the sidelines more than getting ready to press my shutter to capture the football moments!
In a sporting match, the actions and moments do not stop at the competition ground itself after the match is over. During Canon Lion City Cup 2013 Final, when the teams were playing for the winner via a penalty shoot out. The atmosphere was tense and we can see it from the sidelines, their behaviour and reactions. When the winning goal was shot and the winners Corinthians jumped and danced in euphoria, the losers PSV were dejected.
In a competitive football final, there is only 1 winner and 1 loser on the football pitch. A victory is well celebrated by all while a loss is sometimes alone. Corinthians beat PSV in Canon Lion City Cup 2013 Final, while Corinthians players huddle in a circle, united by their hands together and started praying, a PSV player sat down with his head down.The moment between a winner and a loser is seen here in my photograph on 500px.
In a competitive sports game, there is definitely a winner and loser. While losing is painful and winning is sweet, there is definitely room for sportsmanship and friendship after the match and off the pitch. During Canon Lion City Cup 2013 Final, Corinthians beat PSV. Both teams congratulate each other on a match that was well played by both sides. While the agony of defeat can be seen and felt, there were also hugs, congratulations and consoling. That is the spirit of sportsmanship reflected in my photograph on 500px.
My sports photography collection/portfolio on Flickr and 500px had been built over the past 6 years since 2007 and being a sports enthusiast (and when I used to play more sports), I am looking forward to adding more sports photography into my portfolio and collection. As Canon Lion City Cup 2013 comes to an end, let’s look forward to Canon Lion City Cup 2014!
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.