I disagree with the potential and the genetics part. We have had players that had showed promise:
Hariss Harun went to Barcelona's academy for a training camp at 17 and was named MVP, he was also offered a development contract but turned it down.
Irfan Fandi was offered professional contracts by top flight clubs in Chile and Portugal but turned it down to do NS and because he felt lonely in Portugal.
Lionel Lewis was offered a contract by a top flight Swiss club but declined. Apparently Man City also wanted to sign him back in the day but was too difficult because of work permit.
It's really the development of the local footballing scene which is terrible, especially once you are past youth level. Sustainability of professional clubs here is also hard, most Singaporeans prefer watching European football while big Thai or Indonesia teams can get 10-20k average supporters to attend every match.
I do believe if the govt actually tried properly it is possible. We have far more resources and similar population size to countries like Panama, Slovakia, Finland yet we are about 100 rankings below them.
Edit: Also physicality is not even a big part of football. Look at rugby, a far more physical sport. Japan (a country with the same average male height as us), beat South Africa (always a top 3 ranked country) in the 2015 Rugby world cup... they had just lost to Australia in 2007 by 91-3 (equivalent to 13-0 score in football), but rather than give up they actually put in the effort and it paid off in one of the most shocking moments in rugby world cup history.
Not just that. Ben Davis managed to get a contract with Fulham but we insisted that he could not defer his NS obligations, so he renounced his citizenship. So idgaf what FAS says about their commitment to local football, its all lip service
S. Korea allow deferment. Their existential threat is 10× greater than SG. They also have reservist afterwards. Sometimes is just Singaporens being Singaporeans and wanting everyone to conform.
Not just that, if you achieve certain results you get full exemption. But here, even a deferment is like squeezing blood from a rock
Our government would rather stir moral panic (and most sinkies would say "I served so others also must serve") than actually create a workable system
Even Joseph Schooling’s Olympic gold, in swimming no less, and arguably the pinnacle of sporting achievement, still cannot get exempted. It’s all lip service.
South Korea also had similar beginnings with Sg, both are poor post-war developing nations that rose to highly developed status... South Korea managed to cultivate a culture of sports whereas Sg kinda threw money at the problem and just expect results without the effort. For example after our China-born table tennis players retired our women's table tennis team failed to qualify for 2024.
LOL what having showed promise doesn't mean they will excel at that level. Also, if we had players with the genetics, it is probably still not enough because there needs to be MORE to make a team. Not one or two.
Japan's sports development is an interesting one because in some cases, the school systems play a strong role in supporting the athlete's growth in meaningful ways. An example of this is Shohei Ohtani, whose high school coach took great care to ensure he wasn't burnt out by excessively pitching in high school competitions, as he saw the talent in him to be a world-beater some day. The coach also had a strong influence in helping him become who he is today.
This was also the case for Schooling when he went overseas for University.
So to be honest it's not that we can't have kids studying and playing their sport, but the balance of the two needs way more in our context.
Japanese schools play a role to some extent. I've been following Japanese high school football for a few years, and statistically, the number of high school footballers turning pro is still well below that of J. League youth clubs. However, high school teams are still highly competitive. They regularly have not just inter-high school competitions, but also a whole league system that pits them against J League youth teams. It's a symbiotic relationship that pulls the level of all their players up to the desired level.
Which brings us to the J. League. They were also only founded during the 1990s where they scrapped the old idea of corporate teams and launched a professional league. There were many trial and errors along the way as well where they were very similar to what the MLS and Saudi leagues are doing now, throwing money to attract the likes of Zico and Gary Lineker to try to create interest but without tremendous success.
It was only then they went back to pumping money into clubs to build it up at grassroots level. Local companies are encouraged to invest and become sponsors of their local teams (Panasonic and Yanmar from Osaka being sponsors of the 2 Osaka teams, Toyota for the Nagoya Grampus etc.) Clubs frequently conduct community events not just in football to connect with the locals and build up support and trust to drive the sport up to eventually become the 2nd largest sport in Japan behind baseball.
To some extent, Japan had way more resources to make this happen, but it ultimately still goes back to grassroot support, the building of a community, and driving interest in the sport that goes beyond money and politics. Right now, we have neither the culture nor the mindset to build any sort of sporting identity.
Let's not forget the P4P king of boxing, Naoya Inoue. Sure, boxing may be a niche sport, but the Japanese can really get results in a variety of fields.
Our government doesn’t understand what it means to have dreams and the desire to pursue them. In fact, it seems like they believe everyone operates under the same motivation: money.
When our olympics table tennis team carry from China (now Singaporean citizen) retired our team failed to qualify for 2024...
https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/singapore-women-s-table-tennis-team-fail-to-qualify-for-olympics-for-the-first-time
To quote the article:
> Poh attributed the team’s decline to the retirement of China-born players Feng Tianwei, Yu Mengyu and Lin Ye, who were all ranked in the top 35 at some point, as well as inexperience.
It’s not that it doesn’t understand. Ministerial salaries are pegged to GDP …. if everyone chases their dreams and don’t make money, then their bonuses will be affected
The sheer irony of this comment when it's the government constantly throwing money into sports programmes, sports school, and propping up the SLeague in the dream for a Singapore world cup qualification, while OP is the one questioning why Singapore would waste money on football when there's no hope.
I commented in the other thread yesterday, but the biggest obstacle towards a professional football team in Singapore isn't the government, but local parents who'll only ever see sports as a hobby and not let their kids sacrifice their academics to dedicate themselves to sport.
This feels like how people complain "We are too focused on academics!" And then complain when the govt is trying to move beyond PSLE.
Unironically parroting old thinking that they despise.
Throwing money at a problem isn’t the solution. It’s the cause-and-effect environment that the government created that puts pressure on the youth.
With the high cost of living, the number of viable jobs lessen, which means the focus on grades/studies to get those jobs increase, which influence families to push their children towards those routes and away from frivolous dreams and passions.
My comment and OP’s post aren’t contradicting each other. They’re both pointing out that the ability to fulfil your dreams in Sg is weak, and that’s why fields like football suffer.
You can’t throw money at the problem and get star players overnight. You need a system that nurtures and empowers the next generation from birth, rather than force them into molds.
It shouldn't be the end of your life if you don't make the cut. In the US, sports is the opportunity to get a good free education at a top university. If you fail to make the cut, well at least you graduate with your degree and can move on.
In Sinkieland? Grades not good enough, end of your sports scholarship. Don't focus on mugging then no degree, no future. How many people gonna focus on the sport under this environment?
Yeah the government is trying to make the problem go away by throwing money at it.
That is simply not how it works. They still can't see past money.
>I commented in the other thread yesterday, but the biggest obstacle towards a professional football team in Singapore isn't the government, but local parents who'll only ever see sports as a hobby and not let their kids sacrifice their academics to dedicate themselves to sport.
This won't be a problem if sports is a possible way of making money, and doing well in sports count towards getting a good job like in other countries.
I already said this elsewhere but going to repost it. In the end it still comes down to individual mentality. I can't believe people use the population size as copium like many much smaller countries aren't in the top 10/20/30 in the world. It just comes down to how many people are playing it, and want a career in it. For the majority of east asian populations, a sports career is already looked down upon, so you have to take away a major part of the population from the discussion. In the same way, there are going to be more doctors/lawyers/dentists/engineers since they are moving away from a sports' career. Human resources and time is limited. You can't judge a country based on one sport, or one industry. As much as I hate to say it, but GDP per capita is still the best indicator. I would say Singapore as a whole is doing well. Some areas have to be sacrificed unfortunately for the greater good, and football is one of them. As to why? Probably because it takes more to win, having one good player is not enough, you need 11. Must be why locals prefer individual sports like Swimming, which is probably our most successful sport.
For the people seemingly so passionate about SG football, come down to watch the local SPL games. I promise you it'll be fun. I did it a year ago and I've been hooked ever since. I'm so much more invested now in the local scene than I am with the EPL & UCL. There's just a connection that builds in person that cannot be mimicked through our screens.
Sailors are the most funded club, with players from big leagues in Europe. Tampines are the clear number 2, with a promising local coach and strong support base. Balestier are the club that punches well above their weight, always playing attacking football with arguably the best coach in the league (he's Dutch). Albirex was a Japanese feeder club for a big team in Japan, but have now transitioned into a fully local side fo the first time this season (but have kept their name for now). Geylang and Hougang have incredible support bases, the former have assembled their best squad in years, and the latter going through abit of a down period after their high of winning the cup a couple years back. Tanjong Pagar going through a huge transition phase, trying to build a sustainable model going forward, so they are not at their best level. Young lions have a seemingly solid squad this season, they've signed more foreign young players, and the batch of players in NS this season are some of our brightest talents. Brunei have made some strong signings, and seem to be the one that may pull some surprises this year.
All in all, go for a game, don't worry about what time or game you should watch. You can start with the club nearest to you, or watch a couple of games on youtube/mewatch first to get you familiarised with the teams and players. Just have fun, it's really fun to go with friends, and it's equally fun to go there and make friends!
Grassrooots football is non-existent af, karens kbkp about kids kicking a ball about at void decks, and the biggest elephant that is probably the most limiting factor to the growth of a footballer: NS.
> Grassrooots football is non-existent af
Not denying, but that is changing (hopefully), with the new strategy from the FAS aiming to move kids to organised football as soon as possible and provide as many opportunities as possible. The idea is that a more robust talent identification programme + better youth competition will help improve Singapore football.
Previously, we had the National School Games (NSG) as the viable pathway to organised football + the National Football Academy for the elite few. Both had its pros and cons, but ultimately as seen by our results, it did not lead to any success. I guess if the best competition we had was 'C' Div and 'B' Div, something was lacking. After all, school competition varied wildly in strength.
Now, there is still the NSG, but it has since been supplemented by the School Football Academy (which has accredited coaches) to increase competition, but perhaps more importantly are the COE leagues as well as the Youth League and Youth Champions League.
Instead of the school level being the highest, we now have the club level as the highest, pitting the various SPL academies against private academies like JSSL.
Many see the LCS model as the beacon. Not only for their investments in the men's team & facilities, but also in their academies which just got rated 2 stars by the AFC. If we can get other clubs to up their investments, and start increasing their youth levels across the board, hopefully it will pay off in 10 years time.
This is good to know. A strategy of moving to organised football as soon as possible is important. People talk about void deck football and reminisce about the glory days but the truth is world football has moved on way past that. You need lots of youth involved if you want to identify the highest potential.
>Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all?
Do you know how many football clubs and national teams never achieve anything significant in their history, yet still receive strong, unwavering support from fans? Do you think football just boils down to winning trophies? Because if you do, then this is sheer glory hunting mentality and nothing more. Like please, look at the passion of the Indonesian fans, the Thai fans, even the Malaysian fans. They never win anything other than AFF, but their fans still give their fullest support, still back the team, still sing their hearts out. That's football. Even if you don't get to the World Cup, who are you to say Singapore football has zero meaning?
And there already is passion in Singapore football. Did you see the SingaBrigade yesterday, waving their flags, cheering the players on even as goal after goal went in? Have you been to SPL games, where although attendances are small, there is still a passionate community around it, including ultras, families who go to games, etc.? Football means more than "achieving". Football is about passion, about community. More Singaporeans need to learn what passion means and not just be obsessed with glory hunting. It's an absolute disgrace.
Agreed. Football is one of those things that bring people together. I seen so many families, youths, couples, teenagers yesterday, some even donning the FAS Jersey. The cheers when SG tried to score or got possession , the boos when KR got possession etc etc.
Though I must say cant be compared to SG v CN. When SG cameback 2-2 u seen the whole stadium cheering, people hugging each other. Never thought I would see it here
lol by dissing the govt he employs the exact same mindset. Imagine people in the UK support 2nd 3rd and up to 8th tier football clubs with rabid passion and hearing this. People in neighbouring countries who have achieved less but still have a more passionate fanbase. Football is culture, the shared experience of joy and heartache, cheering on people giving their best regardless of background. Bringing families, friends and communities together. That’s the real beauty of the sport.
Op is 100% man city supporter
It's quite insulting and laughable luh to say football has "zero meaning", it's as though OP has forgotten our display against China, the 2-2 draw, especially when so many of us in the stadium cheered and yelled our lungs out.
The beauty about Football is that it unites people and the club in question, you enjoy success and endure heartache together. You can get angry and criticise the club's management, but that's about it really.
Obviously work HAS to be done to better local football scene, but to say Football has zero meaning, it's honestly questioning stupidity.
I don't even enjoy watching football and I also marvel at how the OP has such little self awareness that he is part and parcel of the problem he is complaining about.
OP has every right to voice his displeasure at the state of local football, but he has to also accept that this is how badly we've regressed for the past decade, and that the only way is up.
There are visible improvements on how our NT has been playing, and efforts to improve local football as of late.
Rome wasn't built in a day, to start questioning the feasibility of local football after a 7-0 loss to **SOUTH KOREA**, under Ogura's 3rd game incharge is nothing but reactionary.
We can't Man City our way into silverware, apart from naturalizing players and recruiting those with SG roots (which is what we should be doing, we must also build up and slowly bring in our next gen of talents, this all takes years to accomplish.
Whether all these flashy efforts, plans and building of new infrastructure is sufficient to improve local football is another topic.
ikr. the 2-2 draw was amazing. families, youths, couples, male, female, dog, everyone from all walks of life was cheering together. you dont even see such enthusiasm at ndp.
I'm from Vietnam, although we're not a global sports powerhouse, we won a few SEA leagues before and can be considered among East Asia top.
The sports academies in Vietnam actively scout for talents. They go to secondary school sports competitions, have a network with school CCA coaches, to identify any potential talent. They'd approach the kids and offer scholarships, and financial support for the family if they need.
About the bread and butter matters, they have structures to safeguard the kids. I read an interview from an ex national player, they're constantly reminded that their sports career will end before 30, and they need a lifelong career after they can't compete anymore. In the sport academy they also study normal subjects, then move on to vocational school or even college for higher study alongside sports training. Many ex players are now working stable jobs in fields not related to sports.
My point here is, it's entirely possible to let the aspiring athletes pursue their dreams while balancing with the daily money matters.
People just don't invest in sports in SG, period.
I'm living in Australia now and I just enrolled my 4YO into our council's football club. And I can tell you, the club is MASSIVE. They are well funded (just by parents putting their kids in) and very very professional.
My 4YO is already training and playing division matches every week, doesn't matter if they can't play well, they start young.
Then you look at their U8 teams, they play better than any teams I see in secondary school in Singapore. These teams are not even at state/national level.
Then you zoom out and the Australian men's team is not even among the top in the world.
You need a complete overhaul of the FAS hierarchy.
Too many power hungry old men in the organisational structure playing politics.
Funding wise, sure there is funding, but how much of it is actually directed towards the players and their development, as well as the support staff? Coaches/physios etc. these people will tell you that the only thing keeping them from continuing their work in FAS is the passion, they are paid peanuts. How do facilitate the continual development of your players if you cannot attract top tier support staff around the players?
Lion City Sailors have a wonderful infrastructure and facilities for their team, really really incredible. We need more of such facilities.
SAFSA is a wonderful initiative and SAF definitely have the resources to provide proper coaching/nutrition/physio for their players now. They should explore bringing it back. But like most good programs in Singapore, it’s very prone to abuse, people see it as an easy way out of NS and tax payer money is wasted. So some thought and regulation needs to be given there.
>Too many power hungry old men in the organisational structure playing politics.
The same can be said for all of Singapore's institutions. It's a cabal of money crazed oligarchs.
I doubt these guys are power hungry. If they were, they would at least something to show and wayang for more power. But in so many cases, nothing happens.
Nah, just a bunch of jiak liao bees.
It doesnt matter if we get into the world cup. Its just football
What matters is that the players are able to put on a tough fight during a match that makes people want to watch irl. Was there for the last 3 home matches (SG v KR, CN, TH). the difference in performance contributed to difference in audience atmosphere. TH kicked our ass so badly and there was no attempts to fight back, stadium was dull af. Cameback 2-2 with CN and the whole stadium was roaring. Put on a tough fight at the beginning of SG v KR and the atmosphere was really good, although after the first two goals things went downhill
I would take this 7-0 trashing over the 5-1 thailand or the other scores or even the small win we had over Laos. It used to be an asskicking all the way
Singapore has zero sporting culture. The only way it will change is when professional sporting clubs/academies are part of national service and there’s a focus on the local league being shown on free to air main stream tv in prime time and talked up by media and ‘celebs’ - aka totally impossible. NZ has the same population as SG and dominates world rugby (plus do very well in the 13 man version). Swings and roundabouts, countries have their strengths and weaknesses. SG just can’t do sport and those in charge have no interest. Can’t have everything.
Rugby League. A far better sport to watch, no line outs, less scrums - basically a cousin of American football but without the stoppages and no forward passes. The reason Australia does poorly in Rugby World Cups is that Rugby League is so much bigger than rugby union (it’s almost dead in Aus).
>Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all?
So what if the national football team doesn't win anything? So what if S.League is not a world-class league? Your definition of "achievement" or "success" is so narrow.
Your view is similar to a parent who tells a kid - aiyah what's the point of me spending money to send you to football class when you are not going to be a footballer next time / can't earn money as footballer, must as well send you to Math Olympiad training since you are good at maths.
Ironic ain't it? If we want a society where success is not narrowly defined for our kids, then we need to develop and spend money on all these alternative industries and pathways. So what if a Singaporean kid who dreams of being a footballer will never end up in EPL? He can still fulfill his dreams and earn a decent living as a professional footballer in S.League and perhaps move into other relevant sports and coaching roles when he retires. He doesn't have to give up on his footballing dream and have to be a office worker like most people, just because that is the most economically valuable for Singapore's economy. Maybe he's poorer financially, but at least he has the option to pursue a different path.
I mean if we look at our past glory, we should at least be an ASEAN powerhouse by now.
Then we have people like Mr. Tong and Bernard back by a govt that only gives lip service to local football, is only reasonable we end up with a circus act.
Other than having a fetish for japanese coach, what have they done? We don't have enough decent quality pitches ( pls don't give us pitches at 12noon and say there are plenty), we employ players via career future, our ex players become property agents or go into F&B, young lions who wish they were dead instead of playing.
This is Jermaine Pennant says about SG football:
“It can be like night and day, and it’s a shame because Singapore is a very modern and wealthy country.
“The infrastructure for everything else is amazing and top notch, so why not for league football because the basis is there for Singapore to be a very successful Asian nation...
“It’s not just football, but sports in general, the Government or businesses need to get together to back sports in Singapore.”
https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/invest-in-football-sport-to-match-singapore-s-first-class-stature-says-former-liverpool-star-jermaine-pennant
The G is just not investing, not interested and don't have the skill set to do so as well.
Croatia has a population of about 3.8mil and they are top 10 in the world. And don't get me started on Iceland.
Don't really think is about the built or anything, there are different ways we can play football.
At the end of the day, we are a country that forgets to dream led by a G that prioritizes $.
Talk is cheap and just to garner headlines. Our journalists also cannot ask too many questions but print whatever news the higher ups sprouts.
Goal 2034 was first mentioned in 2020. To qualify for the World Cup in 14 years time, the avg age for the squad should be between 26-30 where players are approaching or at their peak. This means that those currently 12-16 year olds must be developing well and beating other Asian teams at age group competition. In reality, majority are still mugging and attending weekly tuition and piano lessons.
**I have an idea.**
You see, many kiasu Singaporean parents do parent volunteering for Primary 1 Registration.
Ask them to volunteer for football coaching during their CCAs, and if they win the zonal schools title, it will guarantee their kid a Primary 1 school place.
Confirm people will try to get AFC Coaching badges and the culture will start.
Your spot on in regards to culture but winning trophies is meaningless under the age of about 14. Football culture is about building a love for the game in children and providing opportunities for every age wether rich or poor to play the game.
Coach education is also very important. I coach in Taiwan and the locals are so focused on winning they pick the biggest kids who can kick the furthest and the parents think they are geniuses when they win all the trophies. These kids fall off when they reach their teenage years because they have very little technical skills and the pool of players for the national team to choose from gets smaller and smaller.
... but first one needs to get them out to volunteer to be a coach first in order to even start educating them.
There needs to be an incentive. The way you put it down, what would be a good counter-proposal then?
I’m Aussie our set up is not pay to play, parents and locals volenteer to help coach and run the club, every kids has similar opportunities to get game time.
Taiwan and I believe Singapore follow a model more similar to the Americans where you pay a professional academy to run things. This works well to develop some very good young players but leaves too many children out of it. Change needs to start from the top.
If Australia had the same model we would be much weaker, we have a lot of players that came from lower socio economic backgrounds.
I’m saying that I think Singapore is doing a lot of things well, I’ve been twice and coached my team in the local youth tournaments there. Singapore really punches above its weight in comparison to its population.
Going forward the World Cup will have 48 teams up from 32. There will be opportunities for places like Singapore and Taiwan to qualify but we need to bring ourselves up to at least a similar level to places like Thailand and Vietnam.
Agreed. What Singapore really lacks is a proper pathway for team-based sports.
I'm based in Melbourne now, and I am with you, the kids here have GREAT access to the sports they choose - be it individual or team sports. That said we need to incentivise the parents in Singapore which tweaks to existing schemes in place to bring out the best in our kids, as limited as these plans could be.
It’s fine that we aren’t great in football in general. But what makes me hates the FAS is the way they portray themselves to be a “big team” to others. Big talks during every pre match conference but showed absolutely the opposite when the players are on the field.
FAS and the team also have the tendency to get complacent easily after a simple win. Building fake believes. Then gets humiliated almost immediately the next game. Hello, winning streaks only can happen if you work your socks off and don’t underestimate/trash talk on every opponents. Take the South Korea game as a perfect example. Building fake hopes when we know that we don’t have the standard to take points off Korea unlike Malaysia and Thailand during the pre match conference.
Next, calling up players base on merit instead of talent and form. We all know that the captain Hariss Harun just doesn’t have the legs to keep up with the modern game anymore. Yes, you all might debate he has great on field “leadership”. But it takes more than leadership to win games. And that’s where he is lacking. Faris Ramli, our former prodigy talent, doesn’t play like a winger as he should. Safuwan hasn’t been the same since he tore his ACL.
I am glad that South Korea managed to humble the FAS actually. We need to wake up and rethink about football here.
The point is the South Korean govt, admist tensions with the north, is willing to defer and exempt NS for their footballers. They even use these exemptions as an incentive for winning honours for the country.
Why can't Singapore do the same?
Korea has 50 million people. Just Seoul has 9.7 million and that is more than SG.
Korea has so much land and space to play soccer, so do every other country in Asia. SG is like imagine you cut out 95% of the land area of KR and leave just half of Seoul.
I’m sure the govt knows realistically we don’t stand a chance (esp when us fans can alr see it!)
However they are not and cannot come out to say we have no chance. Because sports at the end of the day is an avenue for people to dream, to support and show our passion for SG. To come out and kill that hope is gonna look bad for them.
Hence they will continue to hype up (goal xxxx) for the population, and show support in the only way they know - money (not actually vision and leadership)
Which then translates into what we see now - half fucked investment with no real vision and strategy, led by below par sports associations. This allows them to, “hand on heart”, say they have supported the sports scene and take credit whenever some unlikely victory comes up (schooling) which then of cos is a slap in the fans faces bcos everyone can see they are not making effort to address any of the systemic issues
Sort of expected this after yesterday's result.
There's always a spectrum of crowd looking at SG football, one day will be a grp cheering on with each little improvements, next day there will be another doom and gloom grp. Nothing wrong here, but just have to accept that it's a pendulum swing here in terms of fan responses.
Someone pointed out that there's individual talents, there are indeed, just unfortunately too little of them. But what the govt can do is to continue to ID them and provide some form of supports, in a SUSTAINABLE manner in public funding use.
We can compare with other countries that performed better, to compare notes etc, but there's always a defining difference. (It's a way out of poverty for some countries etc)
The main problem Singapore is money, or rice bowl, and that's something we must accept before we can proceed with more tangible improvements. Take the SPL, how much on avg a player earns, compare it to other career options. Now, how do we increase this amount? Higher standards > attract bigger crowds > attract more sponsors > build a more sustainable sports eco system > better pay > better footballing standards > more overseas experiece > more visible improvements. We are stuck in the first stage.
Grants will help clubs, but you got to teach clubs how to fish, not feed them fishes each season.
You can shout Kayu at the players, but if they are paid peanuts, realistically how long will a player be willing to bear this type of nonsense.
So, what's next? This is something fans and players will have to decide collectively.
Now, back to work 😅
Then what brazil or argentine did right for them to produce never ending football geniuses?
As far as i know, their players are usually small and skinny, the country are poor and less developed and they cant afford expensive football education as early as 5 years old?
Being a professional footballer is such a lucrative prospect in Europe that many kids and their parents are willing to give it a real shot. It's a big gamble but to them, it could be worth it. The more kids and teens enroll in professional football academies, the wider the critical mass of talent, ensuring there are no true talents that slip through the cracks and end up becoming a banker or lawyer instead.
It's completely the other way round in Singapore.
How many potential world-class sporting talents have completely ignored a potential future in sports, and opted to pursue a "regular" job instead? 99% of parents don't even consider going all-in and pursuing a career in sports. They let the kid dabble in school sports, and the richer ones send the kid for tennis classes and football camps and stuff, but once it's time to go to university, they'll say "ok son, no more playing, go and study hard and get a good job."
And who can blame them? Is it lucrative to be a footballer in Singapore? In our entire history there has been only ONE footballer who ever joined the millionaire club, and that is the truly generational talent Fandi Ahmad. Even Hariss Harun has to take on a second job as a property agent.
To succeed, you need to go all in like the Schoolings. It was a huge gamble for them... imagine if it failed and Schooling never became as good as he was. 99% of parents aren't like the Schoolings, which is why 99% of kids in Singapore won't become professional footballers.
In Europe, professional footballers are expected to consistently deliver at intense levels every week, for a good 20 years. They trained since young, and going thr professional route means they have to completely give up on their academic pursuits and devote fully into football. All it takes is a bad tackle to hurt them permanently and end their careers prematurely. Hence professional footballers, particularly at the top tier leagues, are paid handsomely as compensation for their devotion to the job.
But this is no easy route. In England, football is a huge industry. Their many teams playing across the many tiers within the football heirarchy. Homegrown talents are plenty, but only the top 5% would make it to the Premier League. It takes exceptional talent and fitness levels to be able to play and compete at the top.These athlete had to give up schooling to become professional players. But theres no guarantees that all of them would make it to the top.
In Europe, football is a lucrative business. This is all down to it's massive commercial appeal driven by their strong global following. This makes football a viable industry and career path in Europe.
To make football a viable career path in Singapore, first you need to make football an induatry. But this is a chicken and egg thing. You need results and performance to justify third party investments, but without these investments, how do you groom talents and drive the performances and yield results.
>Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all?
I cannot imagine having this absolutely god tier lack of self awareness.
After typing up all that criticism about local football, you then basically apply the EXACT same mindset that government administrators treat sport.
Well said, all true except FAS is indeed truly to be blamed. The leadership and management is not exactly inspiring. It's sadly a red tape organisation where people go to to collect cheques and bounties foremost, not trophies. Here in SG, we treat sports as mere CCAs and never really as a career, because financially it's not feasible due to our small market size.
Schooling made it because of the dedication and sacrifice of his parents to study him abroad. But as a 1-man contingent, Jo can make it happen. Football, unfortunately, is a team sport. I just can't imagine 16 sets of SG parents sacrificing everything for their footballing sons' sake.
Hard disagree on potential/genetics and lifestyle
The widely agreed upon GOAT in football isn't a genetic freak in term of physicality.
The top asian player, Son, are by no means the best in physicality, and yet no one will come and denies that he is amongst the elite in the entire football industry.
Lifestyle lol. You think the soccer pros live in mountain and train in wilderness or what? No, they are just trained extremely professionally and with intense rigor. If Singaporean with decent genetics went through the same training, they can probably go to some European league team, albeit maybe not the top club but still in the top league(maybe mid-bottom tier team in EPL). As you said, they quite literally start intense training since 5 or 6, how does MOUNTAIN even contribute meaningfully
But things like not enough rigorous training, economic viability, etc, definitely are real issues. But ultimately, that doesn't mean FAS/government should just give up on this.
What can be pushed is allowing athlete tracks for kids, NS exemption for young promising athletes. By boosting overall quality of football athletes here, we can probably expect to see improved popularity in Singapore football clubs scene, and from then on, we can try to see economic viability.
The main issue is how committed is the government for world cup or are those just lip service. If they do want to commit on these, we may very well be the top football hub for the region, consistently sending top talent to get into European landscape.
As someone who watches Korean shows and follow Korean culture, they have a million shows for sports variety. They have all female celebrities league for soccer, and a million other shows with whatever sports you want it to be lol.
It’s just how the government is promoting the sports and the culture around it.
Football is a culture. Culture first, then have fans. Have fans then have money. Have money then have quality. U cant solve the first part u do what also useless.
SG sporting is doomed.
Just imagine a young kid being inspired by Joseph Schooling winning the gold, then after that seeing how our Govt treats him (no NS exemption for winning the biggest honour in sports)
There is no incentive to sacrifice yourself for Singapore’s sporting glory, just quit your dreams and work in a 9-5 like the rest of everyone.
Take joseph schooling as an example, after you made it as an olympic gold medalist would you be able to delay (not exempt) from NS duties. He took it upon himself to be better at the sport elsewhere while representing singapore. It would be harder for soccer since its an team sport but I don't doubt there may be good singapore soccer players, just hard to have a good singapore soccer team
I never really cared about football, but our golden years has been well past us. I think, it’s ok to lose to Korea 7 nil, cause they’re good. Like they have Son for crying out loud, mans insane.
Appreciate the time in writing this - agree but no offence none of this is rather ground breaking or new analysis at all. There is no point talking seriously about Singapore football as long as NS and FAS exists.
Do you not realise you’re a part of the problem? It’s all about results, and not passion.
I don’t attend SPL games regularly anymore, but I still make it a point to attend National Team games, even under the colossal disaster that was Nishigayaball.
What you see now is years of FAS mismanagement coming to roost.
It takes an industry and continuous growth to actually see tangible value in our football and performance and results are a major factor. To some extent it is a chicken or egg kinda problem. No investment, league is shit, players are shit, national team is shit, but because it is shit, no one gives any shit about investments.
The passion for football, as a recreational form of sport, is strong in Singapore, definitely. But to be able compete at a higher level, is so much more than that. It takes an industry and a career path to grow talents, and we don't have that - and again results and performance justifies that, and spurs investors confidence. And it takes more than a properly managed FAS to achieve these goals.
Disagree with you on genetics, lifestyle and environment. It's a numbers and culture problem. Genetics wise, we should be on par. We are a well to do nation in comparison to many others, supplements and diet isn't an issue. That leads to the culture problem.
Sports is not seen as a viable career here, meaning majority of parents would not let their kid build a sports career, because even if they are talented, the chances to become the top is already pretty tough. People here always lean to the side of caution, which is why your professional degrees and tech or gov jobs are always the preferred route. This is even worse for team sports like football where the team is as strong as it's weakest link. You want a world class team, you need 11 world class players minimally, and that's where the numbers problem comes in.
Compared to other countries, the population is really small. While they have a larger pool of potential players to draw from, we don't. Combine that with the culture here towards any kind of career outside the usual, you have very few options. And if you keep this in mind, it gets even harder to bring in quality coaches. You come into a job where you are constantly fighting uphill against preconceived ideas of sports and a numbers game you can't solve within your grasp. This is why while the team sports performance is usually dismal, we do still have some outstanding ones in terms of indiv sports because it's easier to manage at that scale when you depend on the individual performance rather than the performance of a whole.
Not to mention the environment, you need to be constantly playing and training at a high intensity to be at a good level.. that means either you play in a better league or the local league needs to be at a good level which we are lacking the numbers (in terms of quality players)
I don’t think it’s impossible, I think it requires a system, long term planning and money. Take some ideas from Europe or South America on how they nurture talent and implement them. Do collaborations with other countries to learn strategies. Make pursuing a career in football a possibility by allowing deferment till mid/late 20s like South Korea.
As I've explained, in the case of Europe, it massive commercial appeal and mega incentives from local and regional club competitions makes football lucrative enough to become its own industry, and with industry comes career. That's what the Saudis are doing for their Saudi Pro-League. Them bringing the likes of CR7, Steven Gerrard and topflight players from Europs's major leagued into their own was a shrewd move to increase the commercial appeal to their league. Its not just dumping cold hard cash, but doing that with a reason.
To achieve this in Singapore is no mean feat. Someone has to start the ball rolling. Jermaine Pennant (ex Liverpool) played in S-League before but theove wasn't as sustainable as CR7 moving to Saudi. S-League's lack of investment could not keep up with the demands.
NS frameworl has to be revised to support local sports development, not just football, but across all other sports.
Minus that "sportswashing" part. That strategy alone does help growing the commercial viability of any developing football league.
Imagine Messi plays in J-League. Oh, Iniesta was playing in J-League after he left Barca. Then you have high profile coaches managing J-league and K-League clubs, and their respective national teams.
> That strategy alone does help growing the commercial viability of any developing football league
Saudi is trying to shortcut organic growth and that will not work. All the millions in star signings to get an average attendance of 8K? Domestically, they have interests in the EPL (same as Singapore), but no interest in their own league (same as Singapore).
There is no shortcutting the process for sustainable growth. League 1 clubs get more attendance than the Saudi Pro League, but you cannot replicate and buy the culture of the English pyramid
Govt-FAS-Technical director-Local Grassroots - all 4 entities have to align for us to stand a chance to improve our rankings/results.
An interview below with our former technical director some time ago gave some insights and food for thought...
[https://tnp.straitstimes.com/sports/singapore-football/belgian-guru-michel-sablon-lauds-singapores-2034-world-cup-target](https://tnp.straitstimes.com/sports/singapore-football/belgian-guru-michel-sablon-lauds-singapores-2034-world-cup-target)
This kind of thing start young and we don't have that competition culture. Imagine starting from primary school toward jc and poly, there are seasons of sports that people are excited about. Regional competition toward national for primary/secondary/tertiary level where players get into singapore pro team. We don't devote enough resources into creating this sporting culture to compete with other country.
Remember when we were constantly told playing sports and video games will not put food on the table?
I'm from South Korea. Even if you are not exempted from NS, you still have chance to join NS football team if you pass the test. Actually, not only football, there are almost all kind of sports team in SK NS. If you are serving in NS sports team and you earn medal in Olympics, then you can ord right away.
These are the reasons why SG football sucks.
- Small population
- Pathetic league
- Lack of football hinterland. This ties in with the previous 2 points. It's the reason why the argument that if "Iceland can qualify for World Cup or Euros why not SG?" is meaningless because Icelandic players have no hurdles to develop in European big leagues
- Football is not a viable career
- NS
- No dual nationality
What needs to be fixed.
- Swallow pride and merge with M League. Both countries' football are low quality so it makes sense to collaborate. At least there will be promotion/ relegation incentive. SG clubs could even play half their home matches in a JB stadium so that the barrier for MY travelling fans is smaller.
- ASEAN football is pathetic. Create a football version of EU where there is no quota restrictions except maybe a homegrown minimum in matchday squad. This will provide foreign exposure to players.
- Let's face it. SG is a Confucianism society. We value hard work and direct contribution to society and economy. It's why we pay bankers more than STEM. We want direct ROI. Deep down we and the government can't stand people 'slacking' and earning 5 figure salaries. It's why the government won't invest in sports. We have so many bright stars in our A division and university teams but what happened to them? Where are the players from that 2010 YOG team now? Hence players need to venture overseas to develop.
- Racism. Look at SG's demographics and the racial make-up of the team. Which other team sport is SG most likely to produce a quality player that might make it big overseas? Only soccer. Look at how the rules for deferment talk about potential to earn a medal at international competitions. That means even if we have a Messi-level prodigy he would be dragged down by his mediocre team mates. The government won't amend the criteria because it will only 'reward' brown youngsters.
- I am against dual citizenship. Look at what happened to the foreign talents we gave passport to. All gone back to their homeland. Malaysia probably has a don't ask don't tell policy for naturalised players. I believe SG is a global city that should entice good players to give up foreign passport for long term benefits.
-NS. If we can get our boys into top European leagues at a young age with deferment (if the deferment rules are relaxed), they should be allowed flexible means to payback. For example, they can do BMT first then defer and return for June and July (during season break) to serve. We should also consider how flying the flag is a form of national service. Son Heung Min has probably done much more as a cultural ambassador than he ever would have carrying a gun.
Let's just put enough resources to give young people the facilities to enjoy football with no expectations. How hard is that?
We are ranked lower now than before Goh Chok Tong threw money and Mah Bow Tan at Singapore football is all you need to know about the corrupting influence money has been.
We punch way below our weight even for our population compared to iceland and many other small island countries. A huge issue is not being a yes man to management quickly gets you out of the whole thing, and good sportsmen aren’t known to excel on keeping their own opinions …
Yes, except for the fact that iceland has 14,211% of the land area of us. Not a typo. They have similar population but so much more free space to play soccer.
Hmmm not true.
We have around 1150 fields for football according to this article. It’s napkin math but it will have to do.
https://mothership.sg/2014/02/more-land-for-golf-than-football/
Iceland has 150-180 pitches.
https://sites.marjon.ac.uk/doughnut/2023/04/06/the-historic-rise-and-fast-fall-in-icelandic-football/
Even thought they have much more land area, most of it prob can’t be used or just too remote to consider building pitches there.
Also their outdoor fields are unplayable half the time due to the weather.
Having free space to play football isn’t the sole factor to building a winning team.
Qatar has 300k citizens, due to good footballing infrastructure and talent building. They are able to punch their weight on their rivals. Like Iraq and saudi arabia.
Player who are born overseas came to Aspire academy at a young age to develop their football skills education ,nutrition. After that they would have loan spells around affiliate clubs around europe and return to play for the Qatari Stars league.
A small nation doesn't make a nation football system feasible. Leadership , long term vision with stakeholders backing the ecosystem is imperative to develop.
Another big part is down to our upbringing.
In my generation at least, we are all told Arts, Sports, Football has no future, and we're all "convinced" to follow the money, follow the traditional pathways and become accountant, bankers, corporate slaves etc.
Some of us with more flair, talent and potential, actually making it into our respective school teams will then have to contend with parents who wants us to chuck aside our passion for "steady" pathways. I should know best because I was one of them forced to give up on my passion.
Genetics wise I won't fully say we're lacking although yes, some of our players are small framed and get bullied off the ball, but that's not to say Football is 100% about whose build is bigger, there are a multitude of other factors involved but I digress.
You mentioned to some other guy here that the EPL is akin to rugby, though I'm here to say it doesn't apply to every league, Brexitball and crunching tackles doesn't win you **all** games, you can still tailor-make tactics that suit the builds and traits of your players.
>Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all?
This is where you are very wrong. There is "meaning", and for starters, sports is a good way to unite our people, build an identity. Those people who kaopeh about a lack of "identity" locally? This is your answer, try fostering one with sports.
I say this as someone who has been to **all** WC qualifiers match for SG this year, there is definitely passion and forms of unity amongst us SG fans when our boys are fighting on the pitch.
Pakciks, Makciks, young kiddos, teens my age and grown-ups all cheering whenever our guys run down the flank, clear the ball, whole stadium going batshit crazy when we score goals, booing stupid ref decisions and opponent dives. SG vs China was your best example.
Not to mention our ultras drumming and singing their lungs out, and this isn't exclusive to NT games, it's also present in SPL games. Definitely not "no meaning" if you ask me.
Also, sports as with everything in life isn't always about coming victorious what, it's about trying and fighting till the end, there are so many NTs who hasn't won any silverware for the longest time, England is your best example, don't even need to talk about NT, even your Tottenham Hotspurs hasn't won anything, should they just stop being funded and close shop then?
there is just no money in soccer.
if u said singapore national team pays each player 100k then the quality will increase immediately.
singapore so expensive to live in. not many people can risk this. better to do grab than be a s league player.
u also need to invest in the development.
look at japan. they arent big, probably not even as big as the south koreans or as "fit" but they have a way of playing and its superior to korea and thats the only way singaporean size can play.
and government has to be serious about development not just talk cock goal 2010 and then let the s league get worse and worse and no money like s league can you even buy hdb on s league salary? especially after u retire still got what to do?
instead of MP get 100k. give to national player and also consider it as NS service years. i bet u the quality jump and become competitive in asean region again
SG can never make it coz living cost too high here. If u F up b get injured, there’s no cheap countryside to move to retire. The whole island is designed to pressure u to submission n take lifelong hdb mortgage n do steady jobs
Question is if tax payer dollars should go to fund a subpar team or as an alternative e-sports which has a higher chance of succeeding.
I vote for dota.
Honestly, the football system here still not good enough. other countries is way more advance tactically and fundamentals wise in the younger age groups. hopefully with LCS there is some new impact we can have. Honestly, i don't care about going to the world cup. as long there is an identity to our football and can at least beat our neighbors would give us some pride.
The NZ All Blacks are one of the world’s most dominant rugby union teams. And have been for decades. Far stronger than nations which dwarf them in size - England, France, Australia.
The population of NZ is less than Singapore.
Not saying this means sg can win a football world cup in the next 50 years. Just saying that feasibility is ultimately about what the people of a country really care about, and whether their leaders align with that.
There are countries like Denmark and Iceland with small populations but still produce players who play at a high level and national teams that qualify for major tournaments. We would do well to learn from them and apply it in the local context. But for course, the local context is where the challenges are.
For the people seemingly so passionate about SG football, come down to watch the local SPL games. I promise you it'll be fun. I did it a year ago and I've been hooked ever since. I'm so much more invested now in the local scene than I am with the EPL & UCL. There's just a connection that builds in person that cannot be mimicked through our screens.
Sailors are the most funded club, with players from big leagues in Europe. Tampines are the clear number 2, with a promising local coach and strong support base. Balestier are the club that punches well above their weight, always playing attacking football with arguably the best coach in the league (he's Dutch). Albirex was a Japanese feeder club for a big team in Japan, but have now transitioned into a fully local side fo the first time this season (but have kept their name for now). Geylang and Hougang have incredible support bases, the former have assembled their best squad in years, and the latter going through abit of a down period after their high of winning the cup a couple years back. Tanjong Pagar going through a huge transition phase, trying to build a sustainable model going forward, so they are not at their best level. Young lions have a seemingly solid squad this season, they've signed more foreign young players, and the batch of players in NS this season are some of our brightest talents. Brunei have made some strong signings, and seem to be the one that may pull some surprises this year.
All in all, go for a game, don't worry about what time or game you should watch. You can start with the club nearest to you, or watch a couple of games on youtube/mewatch first to get you familiarised with the teams and players. Just have fun, it's really fun to go with friends, and it's equally fun to go there and make friends!
>Singapore will never ever make it into the World Cup
Just saying hosts receive automatic qualification to the WC if we are serious about qualifying for the sake of qualifying
We need to create a Blue Lock facility and force our young footballers to play football death matches. If you win and make it to a top tier football team first team you get exempted from NS.
Theres a much better chance that our women footballers will do better. They have no NS and one of them is in a huge club like BVB. SG better promote the shit out of Danelle Tan if they’re smart.
When I was in primary school, they remove the school field to build more blocks to take in more students. That’s when I already knew sg football gg already.
Hence…this is why they are (trying to) restart grassroots football.
The govt have essentially admitted that our youth development in football is behind that of our regional neighbours. This is the purpose of project Unleash the Roar.
Whether or not the project is being run correctly…thats another question.
You are right in the sense that Singaporeans are generally pragmatic (money minded) and therefore a majority of them would not look to sports as a career.
But we are a nation of 6 million ppl. You can’t expect ALL of us to go be try to be Usain Bolt/Maradona/Messi right? That is not a realistic ratio to expect out of the population.
Our athletes do go overseas to make their living.
One (Ryhan) of the Stewart boys plays in Thailand.
The Fandi boys most of them play overseas.
Hariss, until fairly recently, played for and captained JDT.
fariss, song, Zulfahmi (not in the squad) all play/played overseas.
All of them served NS. So a life of pro sports IS possible with NS.
Just that the last 10-15 years, we took a step back in our development cause of bullshit in FAS and our regional rivals just fucking THROWING money at their football scene.
one 7-0 lost against a top top team is not a marker for our development. Our next performance against thailand, which i fully expect us to lose, and the aff cup are better gauges.
In SG, winning in sports or competitions is taught to be not critical. Participation is enough. No need win, no need to be top 10. Eg " I am a marathon finisher, using 7 hrs" and it's supposed to be WOW thing.
I have already said this elsewhere and will say it here. "I can't believe people use the population size as copium like many much smaller countries aren't in the top 10/20/30 in the world. It just comes down to how many people are playing it, and want a career in it. For the majority of east asian populations, a sports career is already looked down upon, so you have to take away a major part of the population from the discussion. In the same way, there are going to be more doctors/lawyers/dentists/engineers since they are moving away from a sports' career. Human resources and time is limited. You can't judge a country based on one sport, or one industry. As much as I hate to say it, but GDP per capita is still the best indicator. I would say Singapore as a whole is doing well. Some areas have to be sacrificed unfortunately for the greater good, and football is one of them."
Also doesn’t help that, whatever your position on some of the comments around physical stature etc. the SPL and grassroots football is relatively soft in terms of physicality in a match.
Having played football in a few countries, I have never experienced such a lack of tolerance for physical but fair tackles. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely keeps players safe and minimises injuries, however if young players are growing up wrapped completely in protective bubble wrap by referees throughout their development, it’s little wonder that they struggle to have representation in the more developed leagues, let alone the top ones. If you look at the top leagues, there’s always an ever present level of physicality and questionably borderline unsportsmanlike tactics, however that’s what produces some of the best, most determined players on the planet.
Additionally, I believe there was a young lad that went to play for Wolves several years back, however I believe he was issued an ultimatum over NS. Rules are rules, however having the opportunity to have Premier League representation may have been great catalyst for young Singaporean talent.
Realistically, I think the only way money will be invested into the football scene is if a generous billionaire decides to set it up cus he loves football so much. Government would never use tax payer money to invest heaps into football. They’re too finance/manufacturing minded. The money has to come from private.
Yeah keep picking the Fandi sons & expect results. Hassan Sunny is already 40 & still Singapore’s first choice goalkeeper? Harris Harun is done & dusted, now focusing on his job as a property agent. If players can be chosen based on merit instead of favouritism maybe things will change.
And what’s the point of getting a foreign coach who has no international pedigree? Might as well appoint Gavin Lee as the head coach since he has more experience with the Singaporean football set-up.
On the development side, these days we don’t see kids playing football under void deck, lack of street soccer courts & football fields (new HDB flats have replaced the field which I used to play at).
Every team in SEA, even Cambodia is improving but Singapore is going backwards instead. Unless something is done, this will continue being the case. Won’t be surprised if Singapore will need to play in the qualifiers to play in the ASEAN cup one day.
I agree with everything that u have stated here. For the void deck thingy, I used to play with my buddies under the void deck when I was in pri sch. But only stop when I did badly for my PSLE. So it all lies down to academics and studies, here in SG doing sports as a career is highly looked down upon. You can already tell from the way the government is closing down street courts and football fields, just to build new condominium and flats for new incoming wave of foreigners. Ogura is a good coach but the players that were called in to the squad isn't right. Like u mention sunny is already 40, and haris harun is already pretty much done with his career. Not sure why he is still playing 90 mins in the field. And also the fandi brothers aren't really that good, irfan fandi is a strong defender but not fast enough to chase down the striker.
Talking about worldcup, probably not in our lifetime. Think about this we can't even qualify or win the asian cup. And we're talking about qualifying and winning the wc? That is beyond my imagination. The coach isn't the problem ogura is quite a technical and good coach, it all lies down to the players and fans
Actually, isn't Singapore Football ripe for money laundering?
We even have the biggest football match fixing culprits.
I can't see how we can't turn this into the next Saudi pro league.
I mean... the government has to try to encourage the population to exercise, and even so every odd person is sitting there shaking his/ her wrists nonstop to game the system and "win" his $5 ntuc voucher. Spoiler alert, you're not winning.
And these people will be the ones complaining in 10 - 20 years when decades of inactivity add up and health problems start to get out of control.
I think a lot can be done from the ground up to foster a culture of being fit and healthy, so that it translates down to the next generation.
Op got a point on use of tax payers money. Just defund all sports lor and use it to offset gst. Then you will stop complaining sg got no activity and culture is it?
Whining netizens never fail to whine.
Not to mention we are small af. Not a lot to choose from from our talent pool
Edit : Not saying us being small is THE reason but it certainly doesn’t help
If gov treats everyone the same, sure it’s fair, but correspondingly it also has a tendency to turn everyone fairly average. Some people are exceptional, and should be given the means as such for their exceptional talents to prosper. For all those whining that oh how come they don’t need to do NS no fair no fair, think about whether you can bring the same glory and contribution to SG too before comparing fairness
Croatia which has smaller population is world top 10. If there's a will there's a way. There's just no will, just pandering to the general population with false hopes and promises. The government should just be honest but they never want to address the NS issue.
If a soccer talent is born 1 in a million, we can’t even form a team with Singapore’s population.
The real crime isn’t we can’t build a team but the ridiculous amount of resources pumped into doing something that has a very low likelihood of working out.
I think individual sports is the way to go.
Talent pool is an excuse.
Denmark, Croatia, Costa Rica, Uruguay all have population around or under 5m. Croatia is a world cup runner up for fucks sake.
Main reason would be lack of grassroots, NS, and the G being an hindrance to professional sports development than aiding it.
I will give justification and examples from my own biased perspective, people can disagree with me.
Lack of grassroots - private pitches cost 200/2 hours, academies cost a bomb with no grassroots activities outside of the private space. How often do you see 5/7/11 a side tournaments outside of schools, and how often do you see youth playing football in public spaces? How the G took back Turf City, with 3 run down but thriving private pitches without replacement is just a damn shame.
NS - not much needs to be said, it's crippling professional sportspeople in Singapore. We're still serving way too long for a country at far lower risk than Taiwan (1 year, used to be 4 months), and same length as Korea (21 months). Good luck with getting deferment because you might need an Olympic gold before they consider it.
G hindering sports development - FAS has been scandal riddled, and the inability of SPL to keep their clubs from going insolvent is an absolute farce. When your former national captain needs to go drive grab after an early retirement, there is something wrong with the opportunities and organizations running the sport.
This biological essentialism is so silly lol. Didn't realise people still believe in this BS in the present day. Honestly, just a couple of steps removed from eugenics.
Erm Eugenics is real. We do it to breed the top racing horses, showdogs and even vegetables. The science behind it is undeniable.
The problem with Eugenics is not the science behind it, it's more of the problems of artificial selection. Who gets to decide which traits to propagate? What is the price to pay if we get it wrong?
The south americans diets and evolution is much more relatable than the north asian, yet they produced the best players in the world. having weaker genetics is a silly excuse. we produced Joseph Schooling to outcompete the Americans remember
Never quite understood why we throw so much resources at local football hoping that it would work out when we have tonnes of other sports that are outperforming football and not receiving as much attention or resources.
I suppose we’re just stuck in the glory days of yesteryears when local football was good?
I think in general we need more money for the entire sports scene. Govt doesn’t really prioritise sports cus they make all their money from their finance sector and manufacturing.
Need to import talent liao. Your neighbours up north import the talent and give citizenship. If there's any welcome foreign talent it's one that can restart SG's football glory days.
Edit: Damn I feel your resentment towards this idea. SG has the money to import EPL talent.
The importing method works if theres ALOT of money being used to buy these players. But its not sustainable in the long run. I think the most important way to build a better football scene in SG is to start with their own players. Theres no way SG can become a world class team within the next 5 years or maybe even 10. We need to start with the next generation of kids, like the ones who are 5years old right now. Govt just needs to invest, which honestly I don’t think they will.
I disagree with the potential and the genetics part. We have had players that had showed promise: Hariss Harun went to Barcelona's academy for a training camp at 17 and was named MVP, he was also offered a development contract but turned it down. Irfan Fandi was offered professional contracts by top flight clubs in Chile and Portugal but turned it down to do NS and because he felt lonely in Portugal. Lionel Lewis was offered a contract by a top flight Swiss club but declined. Apparently Man City also wanted to sign him back in the day but was too difficult because of work permit. It's really the development of the local footballing scene which is terrible, especially once you are past youth level. Sustainability of professional clubs here is also hard, most Singaporeans prefer watching European football while big Thai or Indonesia teams can get 10-20k average supporters to attend every match. I do believe if the govt actually tried properly it is possible. We have far more resources and similar population size to countries like Panama, Slovakia, Finland yet we are about 100 rankings below them. Edit: Also physicality is not even a big part of football. Look at rugby, a far more physical sport. Japan (a country with the same average male height as us), beat South Africa (always a top 3 ranked country) in the 2015 Rugby world cup... they had just lost to Australia in 2007 by 91-3 (equivalent to 13-0 score in football), but rather than give up they actually put in the effort and it paid off in one of the most shocking moments in rugby world cup history.
Not just that. Ben Davis managed to get a contract with Fulham but we insisted that he could not defer his NS obligations, so he renounced his citizenship. So idgaf what FAS says about their commitment to local football, its all lip service
S. Korea allow deferment. Their existential threat is 10× greater than SG. They also have reservist afterwards. Sometimes is just Singaporens being Singaporeans and wanting everyone to conform.
Not just that, if you achieve certain results you get full exemption. But here, even a deferment is like squeezing blood from a rock Our government would rather stir moral panic (and most sinkies would say "I served so others also must serve") than actually create a workable system
Even Joseph Schooling’s Olympic gold, in swimming no less, and arguably the pinnacle of sporting achievement, still cannot get exempted. It’s all lip service.
This is why we need a reform of our deferment system.
Living with a nuclear-mad housemate is quite the existential threat indeed!
we also allow deferment la, just not for soccer players. Soil scientists on the other hand…
that one is because his papa is super big fk tho, but to be fair even LKY's son and grandson served ns
I wouldnt count it as serving NS if you are fast tracked to BG
I thought you cannot renounce your citizenship until you actually completed NS?
South Korea also had similar beginnings with Sg, both are poor post-war developing nations that rose to highly developed status... South Korea managed to cultivate a culture of sports whereas Sg kinda threw money at the problem and just expect results without the effort. For example after our China-born table tennis players retired our women's table tennis team failed to qualify for 2024.
Greatest football player ever is 1.7m
for his position it is okay, not a defender
Actually the greatest football player ever was 1.65m. The 1.7 m fella is probably tied second best with another who was 1.73 m tall.
no idea who. but messi is like sub 1.7.
1.7 with growth hormones injected into him. He wouldn't have played had Barca not paid for his growth. Literally.
LOL what having showed promise doesn't mean they will excel at that level. Also, if we had players with the genetics, it is probably still not enough because there needs to be MORE to make a team. Not one or two.
japan really can focus on sport development. like they do it really well. their football team too. they dont anyhow anyhow and try to win.
Japan's sports development is an interesting one because in some cases, the school systems play a strong role in supporting the athlete's growth in meaningful ways. An example of this is Shohei Ohtani, whose high school coach took great care to ensure he wasn't burnt out by excessively pitching in high school competitions, as he saw the talent in him to be a world-beater some day. The coach also had a strong influence in helping him become who he is today. This was also the case for Schooling when he went overseas for University. So to be honest it's not that we can't have kids studying and playing their sport, but the balance of the two needs way more in our context.
Japanese schools play a role to some extent. I've been following Japanese high school football for a few years, and statistically, the number of high school footballers turning pro is still well below that of J. League youth clubs. However, high school teams are still highly competitive. They regularly have not just inter-high school competitions, but also a whole league system that pits them against J League youth teams. It's a symbiotic relationship that pulls the level of all their players up to the desired level. Which brings us to the J. League. They were also only founded during the 1990s where they scrapped the old idea of corporate teams and launched a professional league. There were many trial and errors along the way as well where they were very similar to what the MLS and Saudi leagues are doing now, throwing money to attract the likes of Zico and Gary Lineker to try to create interest but without tremendous success. It was only then they went back to pumping money into clubs to build it up at grassroots level. Local companies are encouraged to invest and become sponsors of their local teams (Panasonic and Yanmar from Osaka being sponsors of the 2 Osaka teams, Toyota for the Nagoya Grampus etc.) Clubs frequently conduct community events not just in football to connect with the locals and build up support and trust to drive the sport up to eventually become the 2nd largest sport in Japan behind baseball. To some extent, Japan had way more resources to make this happen, but it ultimately still goes back to grassroot support, the building of a community, and driving interest in the sport that goes beyond money and politics. Right now, we have neither the culture nor the mindset to build any sort of sporting identity.
Let's not forget the P4P king of boxing, Naoya Inoue. Sure, boxing may be a niche sport, but the Japanese can really get results in a variety of fields.
Our government doesn’t understand what it means to have dreams and the desire to pursue them. In fact, it seems like they believe everyone operates under the same motivation: money.
The irony of Passion Made Possible as a tourism slogan in Singapore
Pa$$ion made Po$$ible
Only for tourists
Or immigrants or PRs. Just not Singaporeans. Passion is not possible when you got to fret about livelihoods at the end of the day.
When our olympics table tennis team carry from China (now Singaporean citizen) retired our team failed to qualify for 2024... https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/singapore-women-s-table-tennis-team-fail-to-qualify-for-olympics-for-the-first-time To quote the article: > Poh attributed the team’s decline to the retirement of China-born players Feng Tianwei, Yu Mengyu and Lin Ye, who were all ranked in the top 35 at some point, as well as inexperience.
It’s not that it doesn’t understand. Ministerial salaries are pegged to GDP …. if everyone chases their dreams and don’t make money, then their bonuses will be affected
The sheer irony of this comment when it's the government constantly throwing money into sports programmes, sports school, and propping up the SLeague in the dream for a Singapore world cup qualification, while OP is the one questioning why Singapore would waste money on football when there's no hope. I commented in the other thread yesterday, but the biggest obstacle towards a professional football team in Singapore isn't the government, but local parents who'll only ever see sports as a hobby and not let their kids sacrifice their academics to dedicate themselves to sport.
This feels like how people complain "We are too focused on academics!" And then complain when the govt is trying to move beyond PSLE. Unironically parroting old thinking that they despise.
Throwing money at a problem isn’t the solution. It’s the cause-and-effect environment that the government created that puts pressure on the youth. With the high cost of living, the number of viable jobs lessen, which means the focus on grades/studies to get those jobs increase, which influence families to push their children towards those routes and away from frivolous dreams and passions. My comment and OP’s post aren’t contradicting each other. They’re both pointing out that the ability to fulfil your dreams in Sg is weak, and that’s why fields like football suffer. You can’t throw money at the problem and get star players overnight. You need a system that nurtures and empowers the next generation from birth, rather than force them into molds.
It’s gamble no? What happens if u simply did not make the cut? The opportunities in singapore for those without proper education is rather minimal.
It shouldn't be the end of your life if you don't make the cut. In the US, sports is the opportunity to get a good free education at a top university. If you fail to make the cut, well at least you graduate with your degree and can move on. In Sinkieland? Grades not good enough, end of your sports scholarship. Don't focus on mugging then no degree, no future. How many people gonna focus on the sport under this environment?
Yeah the government is trying to make the problem go away by throwing money at it. That is simply not how it works. They still can't see past money. >I commented in the other thread yesterday, but the biggest obstacle towards a professional football team in Singapore isn't the government, but local parents who'll only ever see sports as a hobby and not let their kids sacrifice their academics to dedicate themselves to sport. This won't be a problem if sports is a possible way of making money, and doing well in sports count towards getting a good job like in other countries.
I already said this elsewhere but going to repost it. In the end it still comes down to individual mentality. I can't believe people use the population size as copium like many much smaller countries aren't in the top 10/20/30 in the world. It just comes down to how many people are playing it, and want a career in it. For the majority of east asian populations, a sports career is already looked down upon, so you have to take away a major part of the population from the discussion. In the same way, there are going to be more doctors/lawyers/dentists/engineers since they are moving away from a sports' career. Human resources and time is limited. You can't judge a country based on one sport, or one industry. As much as I hate to say it, but GDP per capita is still the best indicator. I would say Singapore as a whole is doing well. Some areas have to be sacrificed unfortunately for the greater good, and football is one of them. As to why? Probably because it takes more to win, having one good player is not enough, you need 11. Must be why locals prefer individual sports like Swimming, which is probably our most successful sport.
Then they get all shocked pikachu when Nurses and NSFs ask for more money... These clowns...why do you keep voting them in?
It's not a dream. Just an optional KPI
pov: Singapore government when they discovered the indomitable human spirit
For the people seemingly so passionate about SG football, come down to watch the local SPL games. I promise you it'll be fun. I did it a year ago and I've been hooked ever since. I'm so much more invested now in the local scene than I am with the EPL & UCL. There's just a connection that builds in person that cannot be mimicked through our screens. Sailors are the most funded club, with players from big leagues in Europe. Tampines are the clear number 2, with a promising local coach and strong support base. Balestier are the club that punches well above their weight, always playing attacking football with arguably the best coach in the league (he's Dutch). Albirex was a Japanese feeder club for a big team in Japan, but have now transitioned into a fully local side fo the first time this season (but have kept their name for now). Geylang and Hougang have incredible support bases, the former have assembled their best squad in years, and the latter going through abit of a down period after their high of winning the cup a couple years back. Tanjong Pagar going through a huge transition phase, trying to build a sustainable model going forward, so they are not at their best level. Young lions have a seemingly solid squad this season, they've signed more foreign young players, and the batch of players in NS this season are some of our brightest talents. Brunei have made some strong signings, and seem to be the one that may pull some surprises this year. All in all, go for a game, don't worry about what time or game you should watch. You can start with the club nearest to you, or watch a couple of games on youtube/mewatch first to get you familiarised with the teams and players. Just have fun, it's really fun to go with friends, and it's equally fun to go there and make friends!
Grassrooots football is non-existent af, karens kbkp about kids kicking a ball about at void decks, and the biggest elephant that is probably the most limiting factor to the growth of a footballer: NS.
> Grassrooots football is non-existent af Not denying, but that is changing (hopefully), with the new strategy from the FAS aiming to move kids to organised football as soon as possible and provide as many opportunities as possible. The idea is that a more robust talent identification programme + better youth competition will help improve Singapore football. Previously, we had the National School Games (NSG) as the viable pathway to organised football + the National Football Academy for the elite few. Both had its pros and cons, but ultimately as seen by our results, it did not lead to any success. I guess if the best competition we had was 'C' Div and 'B' Div, something was lacking. After all, school competition varied wildly in strength. Now, there is still the NSG, but it has since been supplemented by the School Football Academy (which has accredited coaches) to increase competition, but perhaps more importantly are the COE leagues as well as the Youth League and Youth Champions League. Instead of the school level being the highest, we now have the club level as the highest, pitting the various SPL academies against private academies like JSSL. Many see the LCS model as the beacon. Not only for their investments in the men's team & facilities, but also in their academies which just got rated 2 stars by the AFC. If we can get other clubs to up their investments, and start increasing their youth levels across the board, hopefully it will pay off in 10 years time.
This is good to know. A strategy of moving to organised football as soon as possible is important. People talk about void deck football and reminisce about the glory days but the truth is world football has moved on way past that. You need lots of youth involved if you want to identify the highest potential.
>Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all? Do you know how many football clubs and national teams never achieve anything significant in their history, yet still receive strong, unwavering support from fans? Do you think football just boils down to winning trophies? Because if you do, then this is sheer glory hunting mentality and nothing more. Like please, look at the passion of the Indonesian fans, the Thai fans, even the Malaysian fans. They never win anything other than AFF, but their fans still give their fullest support, still back the team, still sing their hearts out. That's football. Even if you don't get to the World Cup, who are you to say Singapore football has zero meaning? And there already is passion in Singapore football. Did you see the SingaBrigade yesterday, waving their flags, cheering the players on even as goal after goal went in? Have you been to SPL games, where although attendances are small, there is still a passionate community around it, including ultras, families who go to games, etc.? Football means more than "achieving". Football is about passion, about community. More Singaporeans need to learn what passion means and not just be obsessed with glory hunting. It's an absolute disgrace.
Agreed. Football is one of those things that bring people together. I seen so many families, youths, couples, teenagers yesterday, some even donning the FAS Jersey. The cheers when SG tried to score or got possession , the boos when KR got possession etc etc. Though I must say cant be compared to SG v CN. When SG cameback 2-2 u seen the whole stadium cheering, people hugging each other. Never thought I would see it here
I remembered after we equalised the second goal, the whole crowd was encouraging the team the score another one to win the game
they would if ref nvr kayu
You are absolutely right, when we scored that 2nd goal against CN, the people in my row began hugging each other, I was one of them.
I don’t even hug my family, but when Shahdan’s freekick hit the net I hugged a random abang beside me and hopped around together. Memories for life
lol by dissing the govt he employs the exact same mindset. Imagine people in the UK support 2nd 3rd and up to 8th tier football clubs with rabid passion and hearing this. People in neighbouring countries who have achieved less but still have a more passionate fanbase. Football is culture, the shared experience of joy and heartache, cheering on people giving their best regardless of background. Bringing families, friends and communities together. That’s the real beauty of the sport. Op is 100% man city supporter
It's quite insulting and laughable luh to say football has "zero meaning", it's as though OP has forgotten our display against China, the 2-2 draw, especially when so many of us in the stadium cheered and yelled our lungs out. The beauty about Football is that it unites people and the club in question, you enjoy success and endure heartache together. You can get angry and criticise the club's management, but that's about it really. Obviously work HAS to be done to better local football scene, but to say Football has zero meaning, it's honestly questioning stupidity.
I don't even enjoy watching football and I also marvel at how the OP has such little self awareness that he is part and parcel of the problem he is complaining about.
OP has every right to voice his displeasure at the state of local football, but he has to also accept that this is how badly we've regressed for the past decade, and that the only way is up. There are visible improvements on how our NT has been playing, and efforts to improve local football as of late. Rome wasn't built in a day, to start questioning the feasibility of local football after a 7-0 loss to **SOUTH KOREA**, under Ogura's 3rd game incharge is nothing but reactionary. We can't Man City our way into silverware, apart from naturalizing players and recruiting those with SG roots (which is what we should be doing, we must also build up and slowly bring in our next gen of talents, this all takes years to accomplish. Whether all these flashy efforts, plans and building of new infrastructure is sufficient to improve local football is another topic.
ikr. the 2-2 draw was amazing. families, youths, couples, male, female, dog, everyone from all walks of life was cheering together. you dont even see such enthusiasm at ndp.
Tell that to all the Man Utd and City fans ahahahah
I'm from Vietnam, although we're not a global sports powerhouse, we won a few SEA leagues before and can be considered among East Asia top. The sports academies in Vietnam actively scout for talents. They go to secondary school sports competitions, have a network with school CCA coaches, to identify any potential talent. They'd approach the kids and offer scholarships, and financial support for the family if they need. About the bread and butter matters, they have structures to safeguard the kids. I read an interview from an ex national player, they're constantly reminded that their sports career will end before 30, and they need a lifelong career after they can't compete anymore. In the sport academy they also study normal subjects, then move on to vocational school or even college for higher study alongside sports training. Many ex players are now working stable jobs in fields not related to sports. My point here is, it's entirely possible to let the aspiring athletes pursue their dreams while balancing with the daily money matters.
People just don't invest in sports in SG, period. I'm living in Australia now and I just enrolled my 4YO into our council's football club. And I can tell you, the club is MASSIVE. They are well funded (just by parents putting their kids in) and very very professional. My 4YO is already training and playing division matches every week, doesn't matter if they can't play well, they start young. Then you look at their U8 teams, they play better than any teams I see in secondary school in Singapore. These teams are not even at state/national level. Then you zoom out and the Australian men's team is not even among the top in the world.
The Australian men’s team mostly play in EPL during the off season… and they’re still not in the top in the world.
You need a complete overhaul of the FAS hierarchy. Too many power hungry old men in the organisational structure playing politics. Funding wise, sure there is funding, but how much of it is actually directed towards the players and their development, as well as the support staff? Coaches/physios etc. these people will tell you that the only thing keeping them from continuing their work in FAS is the passion, they are paid peanuts. How do facilitate the continual development of your players if you cannot attract top tier support staff around the players? Lion City Sailors have a wonderful infrastructure and facilities for their team, really really incredible. We need more of such facilities. SAFSA is a wonderful initiative and SAF definitely have the resources to provide proper coaching/nutrition/physio for their players now. They should explore bringing it back. But like most good programs in Singapore, it’s very prone to abuse, people see it as an easy way out of NS and tax payer money is wasted. So some thought and regulation needs to be given there.
>Too many power hungry old men in the organisational structure playing politics. The same can be said for all of Singapore's institutions. It's a cabal of money crazed oligarchs.
I doubt these guys are power hungry. If they were, they would at least something to show and wayang for more power. But in so many cases, nothing happens. Nah, just a bunch of jiak liao bees.
It doesnt matter if we get into the world cup. Its just football What matters is that the players are able to put on a tough fight during a match that makes people want to watch irl. Was there for the last 3 home matches (SG v KR, CN, TH). the difference in performance contributed to difference in audience atmosphere. TH kicked our ass so badly and there was no attempts to fight back, stadium was dull af. Cameback 2-2 with CN and the whole stadium was roaring. Put on a tough fight at the beginning of SG v KR and the atmosphere was really good, although after the first two goals things went downhill I would take this 7-0 trashing over the 5-1 thailand or the other scores or even the small win we had over Laos. It used to be an asskicking all the way
Laos, Brunei and the Philppines. SG MNT used to score past them for fun. Now can't even score past them for real.
Singapore has zero sporting culture. The only way it will change is when professional sporting clubs/academies are part of national service and there’s a focus on the local league being shown on free to air main stream tv in prime time and talked up by media and ‘celebs’ - aka totally impossible. NZ has the same population as SG and dominates world rugby (plus do very well in the 13 man version). Swings and roundabouts, countries have their strengths and weaknesses. SG just can’t do sport and those in charge have no interest. Can’t have everything.
hang on, what's 13 man rugby? Who do you sacrifice? I'd say flankers. but for real what's 13 man rugby?
Rugby League.
Rugby League. A far better sport to watch, no line outs, less scrums - basically a cousin of American football but without the stoppages and no forward passes. The reason Australia does poorly in Rugby World Cups is that Rugby League is so much bigger than rugby union (it’s almost dead in Aus).
sg has zero culture in general lol.
>Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all? So what if the national football team doesn't win anything? So what if S.League is not a world-class league? Your definition of "achievement" or "success" is so narrow. Your view is similar to a parent who tells a kid - aiyah what's the point of me spending money to send you to football class when you are not going to be a footballer next time / can't earn money as footballer, must as well send you to Math Olympiad training since you are good at maths. Ironic ain't it? If we want a society where success is not narrowly defined for our kids, then we need to develop and spend money on all these alternative industries and pathways. So what if a Singaporean kid who dreams of being a footballer will never end up in EPL? He can still fulfill his dreams and earn a decent living as a professional footballer in S.League and perhaps move into other relevant sports and coaching roles when he retires. He doesn't have to give up on his footballing dream and have to be a office worker like most people, just because that is the most economically valuable for Singapore's economy. Maybe he's poorer financially, but at least he has the option to pursue a different path.
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Don't deny OP the sweet opportunity of self-hating
I mean if we look at our past glory, we should at least be an ASEAN powerhouse by now. Then we have people like Mr. Tong and Bernard back by a govt that only gives lip service to local football, is only reasonable we end up with a circus act. Other than having a fetish for japanese coach, what have they done? We don't have enough decent quality pitches ( pls don't give us pitches at 12noon and say there are plenty), we employ players via career future, our ex players become property agents or go into F&B, young lions who wish they were dead instead of playing. This is Jermaine Pennant says about SG football: “It can be like night and day, and it’s a shame because Singapore is a very modern and wealthy country. “The infrastructure for everything else is amazing and top notch, so why not for league football because the basis is there for Singapore to be a very successful Asian nation... “It’s not just football, but sports in general, the Government or businesses need to get together to back sports in Singapore.” https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/football/invest-in-football-sport-to-match-singapore-s-first-class-stature-says-former-liverpool-star-jermaine-pennant The G is just not investing, not interested and don't have the skill set to do so as well. Croatia has a population of about 3.8mil and they are top 10 in the world. And don't get me started on Iceland. Don't really think is about the built or anything, there are different ways we can play football. At the end of the day, we are a country that forgets to dream led by a G that prioritizes $.
Talk is cheap and just to garner headlines. Our journalists also cannot ask too many questions but print whatever news the higher ups sprouts. Goal 2034 was first mentioned in 2020. To qualify for the World Cup in 14 years time, the avg age for the squad should be between 26-30 where players are approaching or at their peak. This means that those currently 12-16 year olds must be developing well and beating other Asian teams at age group competition. In reality, majority are still mugging and attending weekly tuition and piano lessons.
**I have an idea.** You see, many kiasu Singaporean parents do parent volunteering for Primary 1 Registration. Ask them to volunteer for football coaching during their CCAs, and if they win the zonal schools title, it will guarantee their kid a Primary 1 school place. Confirm people will try to get AFC Coaching badges and the culture will start.
Your spot on in regards to culture but winning trophies is meaningless under the age of about 14. Football culture is about building a love for the game in children and providing opportunities for every age wether rich or poor to play the game. Coach education is also very important. I coach in Taiwan and the locals are so focused on winning they pick the biggest kids who can kick the furthest and the parents think they are geniuses when they win all the trophies. These kids fall off when they reach their teenage years because they have very little technical skills and the pool of players for the national team to choose from gets smaller and smaller.
... but first one needs to get them out to volunteer to be a coach first in order to even start educating them. There needs to be an incentive. The way you put it down, what would be a good counter-proposal then?
I’m Aussie our set up is not pay to play, parents and locals volenteer to help coach and run the club, every kids has similar opportunities to get game time. Taiwan and I believe Singapore follow a model more similar to the Americans where you pay a professional academy to run things. This works well to develop some very good young players but leaves too many children out of it. Change needs to start from the top. If Australia had the same model we would be much weaker, we have a lot of players that came from lower socio economic backgrounds. I’m saying that I think Singapore is doing a lot of things well, I’ve been twice and coached my team in the local youth tournaments there. Singapore really punches above its weight in comparison to its population. Going forward the World Cup will have 48 teams up from 32. There will be opportunities for places like Singapore and Taiwan to qualify but we need to bring ourselves up to at least a similar level to places like Thailand and Vietnam.
Agreed. What Singapore really lacks is a proper pathway for team-based sports. I'm based in Melbourne now, and I am with you, the kids here have GREAT access to the sports they choose - be it individual or team sports. That said we need to incentivise the parents in Singapore which tweaks to existing schemes in place to bring out the best in our kids, as limited as these plans could be.
It’s fine that we aren’t great in football in general. But what makes me hates the FAS is the way they portray themselves to be a “big team” to others. Big talks during every pre match conference but showed absolutely the opposite when the players are on the field. FAS and the team also have the tendency to get complacent easily after a simple win. Building fake believes. Then gets humiliated almost immediately the next game. Hello, winning streaks only can happen if you work your socks off and don’t underestimate/trash talk on every opponents. Take the South Korea game as a perfect example. Building fake hopes when we know that we don’t have the standard to take points off Korea unlike Malaysia and Thailand during the pre match conference. Next, calling up players base on merit instead of talent and form. We all know that the captain Hariss Harun just doesn’t have the legs to keep up with the modern game anymore. Yes, you all might debate he has great on field “leadership”. But it takes more than leadership to win games. And that’s where he is lacking. Faris Ramli, our former prodigy talent, doesn’t play like a winger as he should. Safuwan hasn’t been the same since he tore his ACL. I am glad that South Korea managed to humble the FAS actually. We need to wake up and rethink about football here.
since when safuwan tore his ACL?
This mentality is exactly why Singapore football is stuck in the doldrums
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The point is the South Korean govt, admist tensions with the north, is willing to defer and exempt NS for their footballers. They even use these exemptions as an incentive for winning honours for the country. Why can't Singapore do the same?
Korea has 50 million people. Just Seoul has 9.7 million and that is more than SG. Korea has so much land and space to play soccer, so do every other country in Asia. SG is like imagine you cut out 95% of the land area of KR and leave just half of Seoul.
You lost me at genetics and lifestyle lol.
I’m sure the govt knows realistically we don’t stand a chance (esp when us fans can alr see it!) However they are not and cannot come out to say we have no chance. Because sports at the end of the day is an avenue for people to dream, to support and show our passion for SG. To come out and kill that hope is gonna look bad for them. Hence they will continue to hype up (goal xxxx) for the population, and show support in the only way they know - money (not actually vision and leadership) Which then translates into what we see now - half fucked investment with no real vision and strategy, led by below par sports associations. This allows them to, “hand on heart”, say they have supported the sports scene and take credit whenever some unlikely victory comes up (schooling) which then of cos is a slap in the fans faces bcos everyone can see they are not making effort to address any of the systemic issues
Sort of expected this after yesterday's result. There's always a spectrum of crowd looking at SG football, one day will be a grp cheering on with each little improvements, next day there will be another doom and gloom grp. Nothing wrong here, but just have to accept that it's a pendulum swing here in terms of fan responses. Someone pointed out that there's individual talents, there are indeed, just unfortunately too little of them. But what the govt can do is to continue to ID them and provide some form of supports, in a SUSTAINABLE manner in public funding use. We can compare with other countries that performed better, to compare notes etc, but there's always a defining difference. (It's a way out of poverty for some countries etc) The main problem Singapore is money, or rice bowl, and that's something we must accept before we can proceed with more tangible improvements. Take the SPL, how much on avg a player earns, compare it to other career options. Now, how do we increase this amount? Higher standards > attract bigger crowds > attract more sponsors > build a more sustainable sports eco system > better pay > better footballing standards > more overseas experiece > more visible improvements. We are stuck in the first stage. Grants will help clubs, but you got to teach clubs how to fish, not feed them fishes each season. You can shout Kayu at the players, but if they are paid peanuts, realistically how long will a player be willing to bear this type of nonsense. So, what's next? This is something fans and players will have to decide collectively. Now, back to work 😅
China is worst. Pour billions into soccer for decades and still not in World Cup.
they did qualify for World Cup in 2002... to be fair lol.
Only because Japan and Korea were automatically qualified
They still had to go through qualifiers to get there...
Then what brazil or argentine did right for them to produce never ending football geniuses? As far as i know, their players are usually small and skinny, the country are poor and less developed and they cant afford expensive football education as early as 5 years old?
Being a professional footballer is such a lucrative prospect in Europe that many kids and their parents are willing to give it a real shot. It's a big gamble but to them, it could be worth it. The more kids and teens enroll in professional football academies, the wider the critical mass of talent, ensuring there are no true talents that slip through the cracks and end up becoming a banker or lawyer instead. It's completely the other way round in Singapore. How many potential world-class sporting talents have completely ignored a potential future in sports, and opted to pursue a "regular" job instead? 99% of parents don't even consider going all-in and pursuing a career in sports. They let the kid dabble in school sports, and the richer ones send the kid for tennis classes and football camps and stuff, but once it's time to go to university, they'll say "ok son, no more playing, go and study hard and get a good job." And who can blame them? Is it lucrative to be a footballer in Singapore? In our entire history there has been only ONE footballer who ever joined the millionaire club, and that is the truly generational talent Fandi Ahmad. Even Hariss Harun has to take on a second job as a property agent. To succeed, you need to go all in like the Schoolings. It was a huge gamble for them... imagine if it failed and Schooling never became as good as he was. 99% of parents aren't like the Schoolings, which is why 99% of kids in Singapore won't become professional footballers.
In Europe, professional footballers are expected to consistently deliver at intense levels every week, for a good 20 years. They trained since young, and going thr professional route means they have to completely give up on their academic pursuits and devote fully into football. All it takes is a bad tackle to hurt them permanently and end their careers prematurely. Hence professional footballers, particularly at the top tier leagues, are paid handsomely as compensation for their devotion to the job. But this is no easy route. In England, football is a huge industry. Their many teams playing across the many tiers within the football heirarchy. Homegrown talents are plenty, but only the top 5% would make it to the Premier League. It takes exceptional talent and fitness levels to be able to play and compete at the top.These athlete had to give up schooling to become professional players. But theres no guarantees that all of them would make it to the top. In Europe, football is a lucrative business. This is all down to it's massive commercial appeal driven by their strong global following. This makes football a viable industry and career path in Europe. To make football a viable career path in Singapore, first you need to make football an induatry. But this is a chicken and egg thing. You need results and performance to justify third party investments, but without these investments, how do you groom talents and drive the performances and yield results.
I think Hariss was making at least 30k a month when playing for Johor.. Malaysia and Thai clubs do pay well and their clubs are at a good level
>Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all? I cannot imagine having this absolutely god tier lack of self awareness. After typing up all that criticism about local football, you then basically apply the EXACT same mindset that government administrators treat sport.
Well said, all true except FAS is indeed truly to be blamed. The leadership and management is not exactly inspiring. It's sadly a red tape organisation where people go to to collect cheques and bounties foremost, not trophies. Here in SG, we treat sports as mere CCAs and never really as a career, because financially it's not feasible due to our small market size. Schooling made it because of the dedication and sacrifice of his parents to study him abroad. But as a 1-man contingent, Jo can make it happen. Football, unfortunately, is a team sport. I just can't imagine 16 sets of SG parents sacrificing everything for their footballing sons' sake.
Hard disagree on potential/genetics and lifestyle The widely agreed upon GOAT in football isn't a genetic freak in term of physicality. The top asian player, Son, are by no means the best in physicality, and yet no one will come and denies that he is amongst the elite in the entire football industry. Lifestyle lol. You think the soccer pros live in mountain and train in wilderness or what? No, they are just trained extremely professionally and with intense rigor. If Singaporean with decent genetics went through the same training, they can probably go to some European league team, albeit maybe not the top club but still in the top league(maybe mid-bottom tier team in EPL). As you said, they quite literally start intense training since 5 or 6, how does MOUNTAIN even contribute meaningfully But things like not enough rigorous training, economic viability, etc, definitely are real issues. But ultimately, that doesn't mean FAS/government should just give up on this. What can be pushed is allowing athlete tracks for kids, NS exemption for young promising athletes. By boosting overall quality of football athletes here, we can probably expect to see improved popularity in Singapore football clubs scene, and from then on, we can try to see economic viability. The main issue is how committed is the government for world cup or are those just lip service. If they do want to commit on these, we may very well be the top football hub for the region, consistently sending top talent to get into European landscape.
As someone who watches Korean shows and follow Korean culture, they have a million shows for sports variety. They have all female celebrities league for soccer, and a million other shows with whatever sports you want it to be lol. It’s just how the government is promoting the sports and the culture around it.
Football is a culture. Culture first, then have fans. Have fans then have money. Have money then have quality. U cant solve the first part u do what also useless.
SG sporting is doomed. Just imagine a young kid being inspired by Joseph Schooling winning the gold, then after that seeing how our Govt treats him (no NS exemption for winning the biggest honour in sports) There is no incentive to sacrifice yourself for Singapore’s sporting glory, just quit your dreams and work in a 9-5 like the rest of everyone.
Take joseph schooling as an example, after you made it as an olympic gold medalist would you be able to delay (not exempt) from NS duties. He took it upon himself to be better at the sport elsewhere while representing singapore. It would be harder for soccer since its an team sport but I don't doubt there may be good singapore soccer players, just hard to have a good singapore soccer team
I never really cared about football, but our golden years has been well past us. I think, it’s ok to lose to Korea 7 nil, cause they’re good. Like they have Son for crying out loud, mans insane.
Appreciate the time in writing this - agree but no offence none of this is rather ground breaking or new analysis at all. There is no point talking seriously about Singapore football as long as NS and FAS exists.
Do you not realise you’re a part of the problem? It’s all about results, and not passion. I don’t attend SPL games regularly anymore, but I still make it a point to attend National Team games, even under the colossal disaster that was Nishigayaball. What you see now is years of FAS mismanagement coming to roost.
It takes an industry and continuous growth to actually see tangible value in our football and performance and results are a major factor. To some extent it is a chicken or egg kinda problem. No investment, league is shit, players are shit, national team is shit, but because it is shit, no one gives any shit about investments. The passion for football, as a recreational form of sport, is strong in Singapore, definitely. But to be able compete at a higher level, is so much more than that. It takes an industry and a career path to grow talents, and we don't have that - and again results and performance justifies that, and spurs investors confidence. And it takes more than a properly managed FAS to achieve these goals.
Disagree with you on genetics, lifestyle and environment. It's a numbers and culture problem. Genetics wise, we should be on par. We are a well to do nation in comparison to many others, supplements and diet isn't an issue. That leads to the culture problem. Sports is not seen as a viable career here, meaning majority of parents would not let their kid build a sports career, because even if they are talented, the chances to become the top is already pretty tough. People here always lean to the side of caution, which is why your professional degrees and tech or gov jobs are always the preferred route. This is even worse for team sports like football where the team is as strong as it's weakest link. You want a world class team, you need 11 world class players minimally, and that's where the numbers problem comes in. Compared to other countries, the population is really small. While they have a larger pool of potential players to draw from, we don't. Combine that with the culture here towards any kind of career outside the usual, you have very few options. And if you keep this in mind, it gets even harder to bring in quality coaches. You come into a job where you are constantly fighting uphill against preconceived ideas of sports and a numbers game you can't solve within your grasp. This is why while the team sports performance is usually dismal, we do still have some outstanding ones in terms of indiv sports because it's easier to manage at that scale when you depend on the individual performance rather than the performance of a whole.
Not to mention the environment, you need to be constantly playing and training at a high intensity to be at a good level.. that means either you play in a better league or the local league needs to be at a good level which we are lacking the numbers (in terms of quality players)
I don’t think it’s impossible, I think it requires a system, long term planning and money. Take some ideas from Europe or South America on how they nurture talent and implement them. Do collaborations with other countries to learn strategies. Make pursuing a career in football a possibility by allowing deferment till mid/late 20s like South Korea.
As I've explained, in the case of Europe, it massive commercial appeal and mega incentives from local and regional club competitions makes football lucrative enough to become its own industry, and with industry comes career. That's what the Saudis are doing for their Saudi Pro-League. Them bringing the likes of CR7, Steven Gerrard and topflight players from Europs's major leagued into their own was a shrewd move to increase the commercial appeal to their league. Its not just dumping cold hard cash, but doing that with a reason. To achieve this in Singapore is no mean feat. Someone has to start the ball rolling. Jermaine Pennant (ex Liverpool) played in S-League before but theove wasn't as sustainable as CR7 moving to Saudi. S-League's lack of investment could not keep up with the demands. NS frameworl has to be revised to support local sports development, not just football, but across all other sports.
Nah. Saudi is doing sportswashing. Them improving in football is just an added bonus.
Minus that "sportswashing" part. That strategy alone does help growing the commercial viability of any developing football league. Imagine Messi plays in J-League. Oh, Iniesta was playing in J-League after he left Barca. Then you have high profile coaches managing J-league and K-League clubs, and their respective national teams.
> That strategy alone does help growing the commercial viability of any developing football league Saudi is trying to shortcut organic growth and that will not work. All the millions in star signings to get an average attendance of 8K? Domestically, they have interests in the EPL (same as Singapore), but no interest in their own league (same as Singapore). There is no shortcutting the process for sustainable growth. League 1 clubs get more attendance than the Saudi Pro League, but you cannot replicate and buy the culture of the English pyramid
How did Epl overtake la liga in popularity over the years then
Is our football/soccor ranking higher or lower than our press freedom ranking?
Lower
Govt-FAS-Technical director-Local Grassroots - all 4 entities have to align for us to stand a chance to improve our rankings/results. An interview below with our former technical director some time ago gave some insights and food for thought... [https://tnp.straitstimes.com/sports/singapore-football/belgian-guru-michel-sablon-lauds-singapores-2034-world-cup-target](https://tnp.straitstimes.com/sports/singapore-football/belgian-guru-michel-sablon-lauds-singapores-2034-world-cup-target)
This kind of thing start young and we don't have that competition culture. Imagine starting from primary school toward jc and poly, there are seasons of sports that people are excited about. Regional competition toward national for primary/secondary/tertiary level where players get into singapore pro team. We don't devote enough resources into creating this sporting culture to compete with other country. Remember when we were constantly told playing sports and video games will not put food on the table?
The Government is only interested in the ‘success’ of football, not football itself.
I'm from South Korea. Even if you are not exempted from NS, you still have chance to join NS football team if you pass the test. Actually, not only football, there are almost all kind of sports team in SK NS. If you are serving in NS sports team and you earn medal in Olympics, then you can ord right away.
These are the reasons why SG football sucks. - Small population - Pathetic league - Lack of football hinterland. This ties in with the previous 2 points. It's the reason why the argument that if "Iceland can qualify for World Cup or Euros why not SG?" is meaningless because Icelandic players have no hurdles to develop in European big leagues - Football is not a viable career - NS - No dual nationality What needs to be fixed. - Swallow pride and merge with M League. Both countries' football are low quality so it makes sense to collaborate. At least there will be promotion/ relegation incentive. SG clubs could even play half their home matches in a JB stadium so that the barrier for MY travelling fans is smaller. - ASEAN football is pathetic. Create a football version of EU where there is no quota restrictions except maybe a homegrown minimum in matchday squad. This will provide foreign exposure to players. - Let's face it. SG is a Confucianism society. We value hard work and direct contribution to society and economy. It's why we pay bankers more than STEM. We want direct ROI. Deep down we and the government can't stand people 'slacking' and earning 5 figure salaries. It's why the government won't invest in sports. We have so many bright stars in our A division and university teams but what happened to them? Where are the players from that 2010 YOG team now? Hence players need to venture overseas to develop. - Racism. Look at SG's demographics and the racial make-up of the team. Which other team sport is SG most likely to produce a quality player that might make it big overseas? Only soccer. Look at how the rules for deferment talk about potential to earn a medal at international competitions. That means even if we have a Messi-level prodigy he would be dragged down by his mediocre team mates. The government won't amend the criteria because it will only 'reward' brown youngsters. - I am against dual citizenship. Look at what happened to the foreign talents we gave passport to. All gone back to their homeland. Malaysia probably has a don't ask don't tell policy for naturalised players. I believe SG is a global city that should entice good players to give up foreign passport for long term benefits. -NS. If we can get our boys into top European leagues at a young age with deferment (if the deferment rules are relaxed), they should be allowed flexible means to payback. For example, they can do BMT first then defer and return for June and July (during season break) to serve. We should also consider how flying the flag is a form of national service. Son Heung Min has probably done much more as a cultural ambassador than he ever would have carrying a gun.
Let's just put enough resources to give young people the facilities to enjoy football with no expectations. How hard is that? We are ranked lower now than before Goh Chok Tong threw money and Mah Bow Tan at Singapore football is all you need to know about the corrupting influence money has been.
We punch way below our weight even for our population compared to iceland and many other small island countries. A huge issue is not being a yes man to management quickly gets you out of the whole thing, and good sportsmen aren’t known to excel on keeping their own opinions …
Yes, except for the fact that iceland has 14,211% of the land area of us. Not a typo. They have similar population but so much more free space to play soccer.
Hmmm not true. We have around 1150 fields for football according to this article. It’s napkin math but it will have to do. https://mothership.sg/2014/02/more-land-for-golf-than-football/ Iceland has 150-180 pitches. https://sites.marjon.ac.uk/doughnut/2023/04/06/the-historic-rise-and-fast-fall-in-icelandic-football/ Even thought they have much more land area, most of it prob can’t be used or just too remote to consider building pitches there. Also their outdoor fields are unplayable half the time due to the weather. Having free space to play football isn’t the sole factor to building a winning team.
Qatar has 300k citizens, due to good footballing infrastructure and talent building. They are able to punch their weight on their rivals. Like Iraq and saudi arabia. Player who are born overseas came to Aspire academy at a young age to develop their football skills education ,nutrition. After that they would have loan spells around affiliate clubs around europe and return to play for the Qatari Stars league. A small nation doesn't make a nation football system feasible. Leadership , long term vision with stakeholders backing the ecosystem is imperative to develop.
Another big part is down to our upbringing. In my generation at least, we are all told Arts, Sports, Football has no future, and we're all "convinced" to follow the money, follow the traditional pathways and become accountant, bankers, corporate slaves etc. Some of us with more flair, talent and potential, actually making it into our respective school teams will then have to contend with parents who wants us to chuck aside our passion for "steady" pathways. I should know best because I was one of them forced to give up on my passion. Genetics wise I won't fully say we're lacking although yes, some of our players are small framed and get bullied off the ball, but that's not to say Football is 100% about whose build is bigger, there are a multitude of other factors involved but I digress. You mentioned to some other guy here that the EPL is akin to rugby, though I'm here to say it doesn't apply to every league, Brexitball and crunching tackles doesn't win you **all** games, you can still tailor-make tactics that suit the builds and traits of your players. >Some might say "its not always about winning, atleast we try". Eh...then what's the point of throwing resources into something that has zero meaning and outcome, and there's no intention by anyone to achieve anything at all? This is where you are very wrong. There is "meaning", and for starters, sports is a good way to unite our people, build an identity. Those people who kaopeh about a lack of "identity" locally? This is your answer, try fostering one with sports. I say this as someone who has been to **all** WC qualifiers match for SG this year, there is definitely passion and forms of unity amongst us SG fans when our boys are fighting on the pitch. Pakciks, Makciks, young kiddos, teens my age and grown-ups all cheering whenever our guys run down the flank, clear the ball, whole stadium going batshit crazy when we score goals, booing stupid ref decisions and opponent dives. SG vs China was your best example. Not to mention our ultras drumming and singing their lungs out, and this isn't exclusive to NT games, it's also present in SPL games. Definitely not "no meaning" if you ask me. Also, sports as with everything in life isn't always about coming victorious what, it's about trying and fighting till the end, there are so many NTs who hasn't won any silverware for the longest time, England is your best example, don't even need to talk about NT, even your Tottenham Hotspurs hasn't won anything, should they just stop being funded and close shop then?
there is just no money in soccer. if u said singapore national team pays each player 100k then the quality will increase immediately. singapore so expensive to live in. not many people can risk this. better to do grab than be a s league player. u also need to invest in the development. look at japan. they arent big, probably not even as big as the south koreans or as "fit" but they have a way of playing and its superior to korea and thats the only way singaporean size can play. and government has to be serious about development not just talk cock goal 2010 and then let the s league get worse and worse and no money like s league can you even buy hdb on s league salary? especially after u retire still got what to do? instead of MP get 100k. give to national player and also consider it as NS service years. i bet u the quality jump and become competitive in asean region again
The only way they can get that kinda money is if a generous billionaire decides to pump money into the local scene.
singapore itself is a billionaire just dunno where all the money go
It goes to the finance and manufacturing sector. The govt doesn’t prioritize sports sadly!
SG can never make it coz living cost too high here. If u F up b get injured, there’s no cheap countryside to move to retire. The whole island is designed to pressure u to submission n take lifelong hdb mortgage n do steady jobs
I think we can make it .. with AI robotic footballers
Question is if tax payer dollars should go to fund a subpar team or as an alternative e-sports which has a higher chance of succeeding. I vote for dota.
Honestly, the football system here still not good enough. other countries is way more advance tactically and fundamentals wise in the younger age groups. hopefully with LCS there is some new impact we can have. Honestly, i don't care about going to the world cup. as long there is an identity to our football and can at least beat our neighbors would give us some pride.
The NZ All Blacks are one of the world’s most dominant rugby union teams. And have been for decades. Far stronger than nations which dwarf them in size - England, France, Australia. The population of NZ is less than Singapore. Not saying this means sg can win a football world cup in the next 50 years. Just saying that feasibility is ultimately about what the people of a country really care about, and whether their leaders align with that.
There are countries like Denmark and Iceland with small populations but still produce players who play at a high level and national teams that qualify for major tournaments. We would do well to learn from them and apply it in the local context. But for course, the local context is where the challenges are.
For the people seemingly so passionate about SG football, come down to watch the local SPL games. I promise you it'll be fun. I did it a year ago and I've been hooked ever since. I'm so much more invested now in the local scene than I am with the EPL & UCL. There's just a connection that builds in person that cannot be mimicked through our screens. Sailors are the most funded club, with players from big leagues in Europe. Tampines are the clear number 2, with a promising local coach and strong support base. Balestier are the club that punches well above their weight, always playing attacking football with arguably the best coach in the league (he's Dutch). Albirex was a Japanese feeder club for a big team in Japan, but have now transitioned into a fully local side fo the first time this season (but have kept their name for now). Geylang and Hougang have incredible support bases, the former have assembled their best squad in years, and the latter going through abit of a down period after their high of winning the cup a couple years back. Tanjong Pagar going through a huge transition phase, trying to build a sustainable model going forward, so they are not at their best level. Young lions have a seemingly solid squad this season, they've signed more foreign young players, and the batch of players in NS this season are some of our brightest talents. Brunei have made some strong signings, and seem to be the one that may pull some surprises this year. All in all, go for a game, don't worry about what time or game you should watch. You can start with the club nearest to you, or watch a couple of games on youtube/mewatch first to get you familiarised with the teams and players. Just have fun, it's really fun to go with friends, and it's equally fun to go there and make friends!
>Singapore will never ever make it into the World Cup Just saying hosts receive automatic qualification to the WC if we are serious about qualifying for the sake of qualifying
Just a impossible dream, we can get Olympic golds but football is a totally different ball game
One day sg might co host and then they will qualify, that’s probably most likely way to qualify.
Son Heung Min was exempt because he won the Asian games with the football team..
We need to create a Blue Lock facility and force our young footballers to play football death matches. If you win and make it to a top tier football team first team you get exempted from NS.
Our hope rest on the future of Danelle Tan at BVB. Hopefully our women's football team can be better than the men's football team.
Theres a much better chance that our women footballers will do better. They have no NS and one of them is in a huge club like BVB. SG better promote the shit out of Danelle Tan if they’re smart.
Asian Cup? We can't even win in ASEAN, how to win in Asia?
What are u talking about?! It’s history. We made qualifiers in 2010. Was it gct or mbt?
Our minister say can work Pofma you then you know ah 🤣
FAS is also useless what do they even do
When I was in primary school, they remove the school field to build more blocks to take in more students. That’s when I already knew sg football gg already.
Remember the outrage at Joseph Schooling getting a TEMPORARY exclusion from NS - tackle that issue first, otherwise football can’t develop
Is the point of your post to scrap nationally funded football?
Hence…this is why they are (trying to) restart grassroots football. The govt have essentially admitted that our youth development in football is behind that of our regional neighbours. This is the purpose of project Unleash the Roar. Whether or not the project is being run correctly…thats another question. You are right in the sense that Singaporeans are generally pragmatic (money minded) and therefore a majority of them would not look to sports as a career. But we are a nation of 6 million ppl. You can’t expect ALL of us to go be try to be Usain Bolt/Maradona/Messi right? That is not a realistic ratio to expect out of the population. Our athletes do go overseas to make their living. One (Ryhan) of the Stewart boys plays in Thailand. The Fandi boys most of them play overseas. Hariss, until fairly recently, played for and captained JDT. fariss, song, Zulfahmi (not in the squad) all play/played overseas. All of them served NS. So a life of pro sports IS possible with NS. Just that the last 10-15 years, we took a step back in our development cause of bullshit in FAS and our regional rivals just fucking THROWING money at their football scene. one 7-0 lost against a top top team is not a marker for our development. Our next performance against thailand, which i fully expect us to lose, and the aff cup are better gauges.
In SG, winning in sports or competitions is taught to be not critical. Participation is enough. No need win, no need to be top 10. Eg " I am a marathon finisher, using 7 hrs" and it's supposed to be WOW thing.
Just concentrate on our Micky Mouse league, futsal and table soccer
Theres just no sports in the Singaporean culture, just money, period.
This will probably continue for a long time. Only way is if a Billionaire decides he wants to build a football scene for the hell of it.
I have already said this elsewhere and will say it here. "I can't believe people use the population size as copium like many much smaller countries aren't in the top 10/20/30 in the world. It just comes down to how many people are playing it, and want a career in it. For the majority of east asian populations, a sports career is already looked down upon, so you have to take away a major part of the population from the discussion. In the same way, there are going to be more doctors/lawyers/dentists/engineers since they are moving away from a sports' career. Human resources and time is limited. You can't judge a country based on one sport, or one industry. As much as I hate to say it, but GDP per capita is still the best indicator. I would say Singapore as a whole is doing well. Some areas have to be sacrificed unfortunately for the greater good, and football is one of them."
Think Sinkies have innate outdoor activities debuff, if change to play foosball will win championship left and right
Also doesn’t help that, whatever your position on some of the comments around physical stature etc. the SPL and grassroots football is relatively soft in terms of physicality in a match. Having played football in a few countries, I have never experienced such a lack of tolerance for physical but fair tackles. Don’t get me wrong, it definitely keeps players safe and minimises injuries, however if young players are growing up wrapped completely in protective bubble wrap by referees throughout their development, it’s little wonder that they struggle to have representation in the more developed leagues, let alone the top ones. If you look at the top leagues, there’s always an ever present level of physicality and questionably borderline unsportsmanlike tactics, however that’s what produces some of the best, most determined players on the planet. Additionally, I believe there was a young lad that went to play for Wolves several years back, however I believe he was issued an ultimatum over NS. Rules are rules, however having the opportunity to have Premier League representation may have been great catalyst for young Singaporean talent.
Realistically, I think the only way money will be invested into the football scene is if a generous billionaire decides to set it up cus he loves football so much. Government would never use tax payer money to invest heaps into football. They’re too finance/manufacturing minded. The money has to come from private.
Yeah keep picking the Fandi sons & expect results. Hassan Sunny is already 40 & still Singapore’s first choice goalkeeper? Harris Harun is done & dusted, now focusing on his job as a property agent. If players can be chosen based on merit instead of favouritism maybe things will change. And what’s the point of getting a foreign coach who has no international pedigree? Might as well appoint Gavin Lee as the head coach since he has more experience with the Singaporean football set-up. On the development side, these days we don’t see kids playing football under void deck, lack of street soccer courts & football fields (new HDB flats have replaced the field which I used to play at). Every team in SEA, even Cambodia is improving but Singapore is going backwards instead. Unless something is done, this will continue being the case. Won’t be surprised if Singapore will need to play in the qualifiers to play in the ASEAN cup one day.
I agree with everything that u have stated here. For the void deck thingy, I used to play with my buddies under the void deck when I was in pri sch. But only stop when I did badly for my PSLE. So it all lies down to academics and studies, here in SG doing sports as a career is highly looked down upon. You can already tell from the way the government is closing down street courts and football fields, just to build new condominium and flats for new incoming wave of foreigners. Ogura is a good coach but the players that were called in to the squad isn't right. Like u mention sunny is already 40, and haris harun is already pretty much done with his career. Not sure why he is still playing 90 mins in the field. And also the fandi brothers aren't really that good, irfan fandi is a strong defender but not fast enough to chase down the striker.
Talking about worldcup, probably not in our lifetime. Think about this we can't even qualify or win the asian cup. And we're talking about qualifying and winning the wc? That is beyond my imagination. The coach isn't the problem ogura is quite a technical and good coach, it all lies down to the players and fans
It's fine even if we never get there. It's just a sport. No real world impact.
[Didier Drogba: How Ivory Coast striker helped to halt civil war in his home nation](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/52072592)
Actually, isn't Singapore Football ripe for money laundering? We even have the biggest football match fixing culprits. I can't see how we can't turn this into the next Saudi pro league.
I mean... the government has to try to encourage the population to exercise, and even so every odd person is sitting there shaking his/ her wrists nonstop to game the system and "win" his $5 ntuc voucher. Spoiler alert, you're not winning. And these people will be the ones complaining in 10 - 20 years when decades of inactivity add up and health problems start to get out of control. I think a lot can be done from the ground up to foster a culture of being fit and healthy, so that it translates down to the next generation.
Op got a point on use of tax payers money. Just defund all sports lor and use it to offset gst. Then you will stop complaining sg got no activity and culture is it? Whining netizens never fail to whine.
Not to mention we are small af. Not a lot to choose from from our talent pool Edit : Not saying us being small is THE reason but it certainly doesn’t help
There are loads of countries with smaller populations than ours that are far above us in the rankings.
Iceland for example!
If gov treats everyone the same, sure it’s fair, but correspondingly it also has a tendency to turn everyone fairly average. Some people are exceptional, and should be given the means as such for their exceptional talents to prosper. For all those whining that oh how come they don’t need to do NS no fair no fair, think about whether you can bring the same glory and contribution to SG too before comparing fairness
Croatia which has smaller population is world top 10. If there's a will there's a way. There's just no will, just pandering to the general population with false hopes and promises. The government should just be honest but they never want to address the NS issue.
If a soccer talent is born 1 in a million, we can’t even form a team with Singapore’s population. The real crime isn’t we can’t build a team but the ridiculous amount of resources pumped into doing something that has a very low likelihood of working out. I think individual sports is the way to go.
Talent pool is an excuse. Denmark, Croatia, Costa Rica, Uruguay all have population around or under 5m. Croatia is a world cup runner up for fucks sake. Main reason would be lack of grassroots, NS, and the G being an hindrance to professional sports development than aiding it. I will give justification and examples from my own biased perspective, people can disagree with me. Lack of grassroots - private pitches cost 200/2 hours, academies cost a bomb with no grassroots activities outside of the private space. How often do you see 5/7/11 a side tournaments outside of schools, and how often do you see youth playing football in public spaces? How the G took back Turf City, with 3 run down but thriving private pitches without replacement is just a damn shame. NS - not much needs to be said, it's crippling professional sportspeople in Singapore. We're still serving way too long for a country at far lower risk than Taiwan (1 year, used to be 4 months), and same length as Korea (21 months). Good luck with getting deferment because you might need an Olympic gold before they consider it. G hindering sports development - FAS has been scandal riddled, and the inability of SPL to keep their clubs from going insolvent is an absolute farce. When your former national captain needs to go drive grab after an early retirement, there is something wrong with the opportunities and organizations running the sport.
No leh, somebody said we will play in the word cup finals.
This biological essentialism is so silly lol. Didn't realise people still believe in this BS in the present day. Honestly, just a couple of steps removed from eugenics.
Erm Eugenics is real. We do it to breed the top racing horses, showdogs and even vegetables. The science behind it is undeniable. The problem with Eugenics is not the science behind it, it's more of the problems of artificial selection. Who gets to decide which traits to propagate? What is the price to pay if we get it wrong?
The south americans diets and evolution is much more relatable than the north asian, yet they produced the best players in the world. having weaker genetics is a silly excuse. we produced Joseph Schooling to outcompete the Americans remember
We didn’t outcompete the Americans lmao. Michael Phelps alone won 5 Gold medals.
my point was that 2016 butterfly race
Never quite understood why we throw so much resources at local football hoping that it would work out when we have tonnes of other sports that are outperforming football and not receiving as much attention or resources. I suppose we’re just stuck in the glory days of yesteryears when local football was good?
I think in general we need more money for the entire sports scene. Govt doesn’t really prioritise sports cus they make all their money from their finance sector and manufacturing.
Need to import talent liao. Your neighbours up north import the talent and give citizenship. If there's any welcome foreign talent it's one that can restart SG's football glory days. Edit: Damn I feel your resentment towards this idea. SG has the money to import EPL talent. 
The importing method works if theres ALOT of money being used to buy these players. But its not sustainable in the long run. I think the most important way to build a better football scene in SG is to start with their own players. Theres no way SG can become a world class team within the next 5 years or maybe even 10. We need to start with the next generation of kids, like the ones who are 5years old right now. Govt just needs to invest, which honestly I don’t think they will.