BoLASEPaKO.COM - A Blog on Singapore Football

Moore - A fatherly figure to the 1994 Lions (as credited) When he assumed the role of Technical Director of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) in January 1994, little did Douglas Moore know things would take a different turn in weeks to come. Arrived in the island republic on the recommendation of the late Peter Velappan, the then secretary of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) , the former New Zealand FA's Director of Coaching was told he would assist Ken Worden , the then newly-appointed Singapore national team coach, when necessary, on top of his scope which included overseeing various national age-group squads, conducting coaching clinics, etc. However, merely days before Singapore were set to start their Malaysian Premier League (Liga Perdana) campaign against Kelantan, Worden dropped a bombshell by tendering his resignation, citing 'personal reasons' . Shortly after, the Preston-born Australian was named head coach of the 'auld enemy,' Selangor...

I was thrilled to receive my copy of " Roy of the Rovers " which I bought online recently (image below). A browse through the pages of this hard copy that compiled the best of its 1970s collection brought back some of my childhood memories when I first came across this comic strip during my primary school days. A hardcopy of "Roy of The Rovers" Like how boys these days are glued to their handhelds, many in the yesteryears were looking forward to the latest development of the exploits of the main character " Roy Race " and " Melchester Rovers " the fictional football team managed by him. Those first few copies I read were found in my school library, and since then it has been a futile effort to grab hold of them despite years of scavenging among those discarded collections or any secondhand book stores I can think of. Honestly speaking, hardcovers like the one shown are not that cheap, but a chance to savour that bit of childhood memory is pricele...

Singapore coach Tsutomu Ogura   It is not uncommon to hear the chorus of disapproval from the masses after any less-than-convincing performance from the Singapore national football team . The same thing happened after the Lions concluded their friendly fixtures of late against Myanmar and Chinese Taipei at the National Stadium . Using these two fixtures as a final tuning up before the biennial showpiece, the Asean Championship , aka AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup (AFF ME Cup), Coach Tsutomu Ogura prioritised experimenting with some new tactics and formations, which resulted in a scrappy 3-2 win over the "Chinthe" before succumbing to their third defeat to the Blue Wings on the same scoreline since 2017. A SCRAPPY WIN OVER MYANMAR Understandably, the performances from these two fixtures aren't convincing enough to suggest the four-time Asean champions are ready for the bigger test. Apart from the first half against the Myanmarese, when the Lions took an early lead from F...

The poor performance of Jaguars cannot be tolerated. It is such an appalling sight to see the recent performance of the once-mighty Tanjong Pagar United . Put it bluntly, do the Jaguars still remember they are playing in the top-tier league of this country? One may be forgiven if you occupy the last spot of the ladder, but one cannot be forgiven if efforts on the field failed to convince the others of your determination to turn things around. It was not hard for the critics to come after them again after the recent 6-0 loss to Hougang United , their nearest rivals on the ladder prior to the 1st November fixture. As the league heads for a long recess after this week, Tanjong Pagar United remain the only team in the nine-team league to accumulate single-digit points (8) with only two wins, two draws, and fourteen defeats in the ninth spot. The eighth-placed Young Lions (at the time of writing) already collected 18 points out of the 17 games played. Any layman could easily tell some of th...