By Les Tan/Red Sports
The Singapore team troop off after the 1-4 loss against Thailand. There were a few red eyes. (Photo 1 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Jalan Besar Stadium, Monday, June 29, 2009 – For Singapore to lose 1-2 against Iran in the Asian Youth Games football opener was sad, but not unexpected, but to go down to Thailand was a cold dash of reality. And to lose 1-4, well, that’s just humiliating.
It just shows that we are still not good enough in football regionally.
Yes, the senior national team are 3-time ASEAN champions but that team benefits from the foreign talent scheme. Seven out of the starting 11 are foreign-born.
Yesterday, as the rain fell and our boys added their tears, man for man, Thailand showed Singapore that they could still outplay us if only local-born players are selected.
This shows that without the foreign talent scheme, the Thais would rule ASEAN.
Any comments about this team has to be tempered by the fact that they are only 14-year-olds. The team showed individual flashes of brilliance. Jeffrey Lightfoot was steady in defence; Hanafi has great ball skills and can shoot; Adri hit the crossbar twice in two games.
Football, though is a team game, and Singapore could not often pose a threat in the final third of the field. Which is why football is so maddening to watch because it yields precious few breathtaking moments in a long 90 minutes.
The bigger questions is why we don’t seem to get better talent to play for Singapore. With over 100 schools playing in the Inter-School B and C Division Football Championships every year, that’s at least 3,000 players to choose from.
Perhaps our society is just not set up to succeed in football without foreign talents.
Football is primal. Two teams of 11 trying to outplay and outsmart each other, not just with skill, but with gamesmanship as well if they can get away with it.
But maybe we are too comfortable to fight. Football offers little or less rewards. For our regional neighbours, getting into the football team means a trip to Singapore, and the Swissotel. A step up in life.
We are a nation of football watchers, not football players. The results don’t lie.
Syazwan Zin (Singapore, #11) charges into Noulsaard Nattawat (Thailand, #4) in an attempt to convert. (Photo 2 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Hanafi Akbar (Singapore, #10) gets knocked over after a challenge from Jairangsee Chatchon (Thailand, #5). (Photo 3 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Hanafi (#10) laments a wasted opportunity. (Photo 4 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
Jairangsee Chatchon receives a yellow card from referee Dang Thanh Ha after a rough challenge but what mattered most was that his team won the game. (Photo 5 © Lai Jun Wei/Red Sports)
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From what I heard… After the first match against Iran, Half the team was suffering from hard knocks and injuries. But still they played but loss. Each player gave their best and they could have won.
i don’t think foreign talents are good as it will not be proud for a foreigner to wear the national jersey. i have watch the boys played and i think they had given their heart and soul and also trying their best. well done boys!
@ Kar-Teck
You are right – given the school workload, it is not quite possible. I don’t think it will ever be possible. So any youth development by default is hampered by this fundamental fact. The talents that are good enough to play will never commit the time to train. I think that is a given.
Which therefore leads to the next point – the foreign talent scheme. The scheme is a pragmatic response to our situation. It is a practical short cut. If not for the scheme, we would not have made it that far in world cup qualifying.
I’m personally neutral to the foreign talent scheme. I think anyone who has sunk roots in Singapore is welcome, regardless of where they come from. If they invest emotionally in Singapore, live here, send their kids to school, seek the common good, we should welcome them. They are but responding to the scheme and contributing the best they can.
@Les
Personally, I don’t think using this tournament as a benchmark for youth development in football in Singapore is fair. You mentioned that loads of training, get-together etc is needed to mould a team – agree – given the school workload in Singapore, this is perhaps as not quite possible.
@all
Unlike almost everyone on this thread, I don’t see anything wrong with the Foreign Talent Scheme. As a nation we must play to our advantage and in this case, it is the ability as a country to attract foreign talents.
The truth is, every footballing nation in the world is doing what we are doing. Eduardo plays for Croatia (born in Brazil), Vieira for France (Senegal) and Hargreaves for England (Canada)
Football development does not happen overnight. For almost everyone who has closely followed the national team since departing the M-League in 1994 have to agree that, as a nation, we have improved leaps and bounds. We may be still far from World Cup Qualification, but we are now standing on a very solid platform to launch ourselves from.
To me, it does not matter how different you look or where you are born. As long as you don my national team colours, you are my fellow countrymen and we are fighting for the same cause.
@Singapore Sports Fan,
Standing there in the rain to take their pictures, it was a bit of a heartache to see the Thais outplay our boys. Very sad lah.
They probably didn’t have enough training time to gel.
That’s the problem with football. With 11 players, you need at least 4-5 good players as the spine.
Do we have them? Hanafi, Lightfoot, Brandon, Adri?
Then after that, they need to train, train, train, then play, play, play.
Then maybe you get the teamwork. What a pity.
With regards to the Foreign Talent Scheme, I think it’s probably a response to the inability to get good you age group talent to commit to the existing youth set up.
Shortcut, but, hey it works right? They won 3 ASEAN championship titles, right?
The stadium is still packed right when Singapore played Vietnam in the semi-final last December in the ASEAN Championship, right?
The ends justify the means?
In Singapore it is difficult to do well in both sports and education. The support and opportunity we get here is not like in Europe or America. What can these boys do after they reach 30 or worst if they can’t play anymore due to injuries? How to survive in Singapore without a good education? How many of them wants to be a coach; almost everyone!!I bet if the players get big bucks for playing soccer professionally, it will be a different story.How can we improve? I guess we need more exposure, more international matches, just like gooni said overseas training. Our boys also need alot of guidance and nuturing. Maturity also plays an important part in becoming a good player. They need to have a smart vision. They must have the drive to get better and better everyday. They must want to get better.
Hit the nail on the head. Could not have put it better. But the football authorities will never agree to your piece… and will always point to Tiger Cup victories to prove their point. Singapore football is dying…
amigos, our locals are nowhere near the level of the Thais. I have played against many of our prime league and S-league players and also been to Thailand to play against College and university teams. I got a chance to have a feel also of their football set up, I can tell you that there is no comparison. We are nowhere near the Thais.
To be honest, as much as i would like to see singapore do well in football, i can’t see how much further we can improve. We live in a realistic world and in singapore, football won’t get you very far unlike europe and there are just too many distractions around to get young singaporeans to start early and really work hard for football alone. I want to see us competing with the likes of qatar, japan etc but we’re still stuck at where we have been all along, south east asia. I know we have achieved some good results over the last couple years but those occasional mini success doesn’t get us anywhere. Sadly.
I wonder why the AYG only has football for the guys but no girls football competition? Is it because Singapore has disbanded the women’s senior football team aka the Lionesses not too long ago or Singapore has too few girls playing football?
i believe without those foreign players we cn still beat the thais..one thing about singapore football,its full of politics..i think thats the main problem we face…in a team some players are good and hardworking unfortunately they are not the coaches so called ‘sons’ or ‘pets’ thats why some of these good and hardworking players are not playing..if we singaporeans want to see our national age group succeed or to be regard as among the elites,i think this is the problem we should tackle and solved it..if there’s fairness in a team or no favourtism and through hardwork both players and coaches,we can be the best team in our region or maybe in asia who knows…other nations such as malaysia,thailand,vietnam etc they use their local born players…if they can groomed and nuture their own players,why singapore can’t?with us having the state of the art facilities and latest technology i’m sure we too can do it..what our national age groups need is that more international matches or overseas training are needed so as to give them exposure and experience what’s like to play or train with players from other countries who are much more better than them and through this experience our players will become more mature and they will approach future games differently such as(AYG,YOG,etc)they will become better..we are not lack in talent..so nature and groomed this players.
well said SSF 🙂
Hi Les
Good piece. I was about to pen something similar on my sie as well but looks like you’ve beaten me to it *grin*
Yeah, it’s the bitter truth, isn’t it?
We were shite 80% of the time against Thailand and in general, the cold hard truth is that our senior football teams are nothing without the scouting, recruitment and infusion of naturalised citizens
(I’ve decided to stop using the phrae ‘foreign talents’ becase some o these foreigners are atuallty not that talented, and the contuned usage and abuse of the phrase will only continue to make us view ourselves as inferior).
And the more we keep recruiting these naturalised citizens, the more we fans will identify less with the Lions, and the further away we move from solving the actual problem of proper talent management and development.
Regards
SSF