BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

(The following message is brought to you by TEAM IGNITE EU4RIA [YEP], an overseas CIP team to help the less fortunate in Battambang, Cambodia) INTRODUCTION As part of our fund raising efforts to renovate and refurbish an orphanage in Cambodia, we are raising funds by organizing a soccer tournament and a netball challenge! Join us and challenge yourself to be the best! All proceeds will go to the fund raising efforts to improve the lives of the orphans in the Madrasah Jamiyyah Munabiq Al-Khair run by Cambodia Good Source Organisation (CGSO). EVENT INFORMATION Date: 26 June 2010 Time: 9 to 5 pm Venue: East Coast Park CAGE Men's Challenge: 5-a-side futsal (Under 21 and Open Categories) Women's Challenge: 5-a-side street netball (Open Category) Cost: $80 per team (6-8 players per team including up to 3 reserves) Cash prizes to be won for top 3 winning teams! For more information, please log on to http://el-toreno.blogspot.com/

One of the aims of this blog is to expand its coverage beyond the S.League into the continental level, which I'm glad to say that I managed to fulfil that task as an obscure blogger. Just as people tend to see the glamour side of these continental tournaments (i.e.:the Asian Champions League and the second-tier AFC Cup), I thought it would be an eye-opener to take a look behind the scene of running the events, which is an arduous task for those who were involved. THE ACCESS PASS... (Picture above) Colour code of various type of passes and bibs were clearly illustrated on this glass panel. Credit to this volunteer whose task was to sort these passes. Being prided as the top-two continental tournaments, it's inevitable that the organizers - the AFC and the relevant local sub-organizers would have various pass issued to those involved behind the scene. From the AFC officials, players, coaches, team officials to the media, security, ball boys and even cleaners were being given a p

(P.S: As I will be out-station for a while, it would not be too good to leave this place empty.) Like I mentioned it's a collective effort from everyone to see this blog continue to excel, so this blog entry here is rather spontaneous in a sense that it was conceived after a brief chatter with a friend over the phone. During our short tele-conversation, he suggested a change in everyone's mentality shall be in place, should we see the successful implementation of the "Strategic Plan". He stressed that some "stick-in-the-mud" kind of attitude of some in the fraternity should be removed in order to see our football go forward. He went on added that with new ACL regulation, he doubt we can make because of 2 criteria - the mandatory promo/relegation system and the minimum 5k attendance at each game. So at the end of the day, would you guys agree that even given the grand, comprehensive strategic plan that detailed every thing, would the whole thing WOULD DERAIL

This afternoon, I went to collect my prizes for coming 1st in the "STAR SPORTS BLOGGER" This is the temporary site of the SSC (Singapore Sports Council), until the Sports Hub is ready. The recognition of my blogging - an iPhone , a Macbook and a "Magic Mouse" (many thanks to Mr Daniel Tan of SSC for taking this shot) . Nice chatting up with some of the SSC guys as ideas were exchanged, opinions were shared during the session. It was a wonderful discussion and yes, again, thank you very much for the recognition . AFTERTHOUGHTS When I realized that I won the contest, I knew that it's gonna be a brand new beginning to my blogging experience. With the recognition being bestowed upon, it also means I shall NOT rest on my laurels and the key now is how should I build on this achievement in order to improve my blogging on something so dear to me. And that's something I felt it's not only me, but a collective effort of you guys to help me to enhance the exper

Erwan Gunawan (second from right) scored the winner The picture above is a snapshot of a historical moment for Singapore football. This was the moment when substitute striker Erwan Gunawan (second blue jersey player from the right) headed home the winning goal to give SAFFC and Singapore their first-ever victory in the continental elite club competition over China's Henan Jianye. John Wilkinson (center) started his first game for the Warriors  The Warriors' defense were not being stressed as compared to the last 2 ACL home outings. As compared to their last two outing at the Jalan Besar Stadium, Henan's cautious and possession type of football complemented the style of the Singapore representative, as both Suwon Samsung and Gamba Osaka duly punished the Warriors with their much superior swift mobility tactics. Daniel Bennett's strike in the 65th minute gave SAFFC the lead. Erwan Gunawan came on as a replacement for Indra Sahdan Probably because of that "ton

(Pictured above) SAFFC' are hoping for better showing after hitting bad patches lately. (Media Information from Football Association of Singapore ) SINGAPORE, 9 April 2010: S.League Champions Singapore Armed Forces FC and Henan Jianye from China meet in the 2010 AFC Champions League Group G match which will be played on Tuesday, 13 April at the Jalan Besar stadium. Kick off is at 7.30pm. Match : 2010 AFC Champions League Group G – Singapore Armed Forces FC vs Henan Jianye Date : 13th April 2010 Time : 7.30pm Venue : Jalan Besar Stadium Ticketing Information Pre-sale Date : 2nd March 2010 until 12th April 2010 Time/Venue : (1) 10am to 5pm / Choa Chu Kang Stadium, 2nd Level, 4D/TOTO Booth (2) 5pm to 9pm / 2nd Level SAFFC Clubhouse Category ( Grandstand/ Gallery) Adult - S$10 /S$8 Child - S$10 /S$2 Senior Citizen - S$10 /S$2 Sale on match day: Date: 13th April 2010, for match vs Henan Jianye (CHN) Time/Venue: 6pm / Jalan Besar Stadium, North and South Entrance For more informatio

(The content of this entry is obtained via transcripts from Strategic Public Relations Group Singapore-[SPRG] , the publicists for Puma Singapore ) (Copyright of the images depicted inside this entry belongs to Puma ) SINGAPORE, 8 April 2010 – PUMA has once again demonstrated its place as a market leader in product design, after being awarded the “Red Dot Award: Product Design 2010” for three of its football products. The PowerCat 1.10 football , PowerCat 1.10 iFG football boot and Italy home shirt impressed the panel of experts and international judges who made the decision after receiving more than 4,252 entries from 57 nations in the product design category. The Red Dot Award: Product Design is one of the largest and most-renowned design competitions worldwide and is an internationally- recognised quality label for excellent design. The jury rated PUMA’s PowerCat 1.10 products against a number of key criteria including design quality, degree of innovation, longevity and ecologic

Image credit: The Football Association of Singapore MY THOUGHTS Had a brief run through the strategic plan outlined by the FAS, it's detailed and covered almost every aspect of the game development in this country. Other than the usual players' nurturing and betterment for the national teams, league, it has also touch on areas like using IT technology to enhance the data, info management of local football, etc. Now, it's up to all of us to do our part to get it on the track, since the plan is out on the table Which I think one of the potential bugbear we need to get rid is not to associate the present blueprint with the old "GOAL 2010" project. We need to embark this plan with a piece of blank paper without any spot it RELEVANT LINKS FAS launch Strategic Plan for 2010-2015 to take Singapore football to next level‏ Address by Mr Zainudin Nordin, President, Football Association of Singapore & Mayor for Central Singapore District at the launch of the plan

Another bad day in office for Peter Tomko as he was robbed of the ball in the Thai Port's box Meet a friend who donned the 1996's Geylang jersey after the game at the Lavender station. “I kinda give up as the way Geylang played was so unimaginative and depend on luck to win their games.” lamented this friend of my, as he offered his opinion of Eagles' performed before he boarded his train. The "Singha Jao Ta" 'keeper Pattarakorn Thanganuruck had very little much to do. Battle of "13", as the Geylang's Jonathan Xu trailing his opposite number Issarapong Lilakorn Indeed, he seems to be spot-on of the Eagles' performance lately. In their last two matches, the Bedok-based club had to came from behind, at the later stages, to level the scores to avoid being ended up as the losing side. "Chip it up!!" as Shah Hirul can only watch as Jirawat Makarom lifted the ball into the box Apparently, like my friend suggested luck was r

(Picture credit and edited with permission from Gan Meng Yeow ) Since I switched to iPhone , I have been heavily utilizing the "Twitter" related applications (such as " TweetDeck " and " TweetDeck ") on this wonderful gadget (as pictured above and to think the fact that I once proclaimed I'm not an APPLE user). Straight to the point, with the popularizing of this revolutionized handset that almost everyone is carrying nowadays. I think making full use of the social media tools such as " Twitter " and " Facebook " would do more good than harm. While I am aware the league authority and some clubs also have their own "tweets" and "FB" presence, but in my presence opinion those are rather under-utilized. Under-used in a sense, it's nothing more than just trying to squeeze everything like the latest information, match updates within the 140-character limit. So this is why I making use of the picture uploading func