BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

Following the decision to forgo friendlies against other national teams during the current FIFA window (2-10 September) , the Singapore national team has commenced their centralised training at the Kallang Football Hub (KFH) as part of their preparations for the upcoming AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup (AFF ME Cup) later this year. Cardiff City's Perry Ng speaking to the media Perry Ng get down to work immediately The training session began with the media appearance of Cardiff City defender Perry Ng and BG Tampines Rovers midfielder Kyoga Nakamura at KFH. According to the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), their inclusion in the training is part of a "familiarisation stint." STRONG DESIRE TO PLAY FOR THE LIONS For those unbeknownst, Liverpool-born Ng has long been in the spotlight due to his eligibility to play for the Lions through his late Singapore-born paternal grandfather . Meanwhile, 28-year-old Nakamura received his permanent residency approval in March . The

Lions Coach Tsutomu Ogura listening attentively to a question  National coach Tsutomu Ogura announced his squad of twenty-eight players during a media briefing held this afternoon (28/8) at the Jalan Besar Stadium. Notable selections by the former Japanese national assistant coach include the return of Lion City Sailors' goalkeeper Izwan Mahbud and Balestier Khalsa defender Darren Teh back to the fold with Geylang International's Zikos Chua and Ajay Robson of Hougang United earned their first call-ups to the senior squad. FIFA DATES AGAINST J1 TEAMS, JDT, AND STAGS Another noteworthy announcement made during the briefing was the scheduling of closed-door friendly matches against Singapore Premier League side BG Tampines Rovers and Malaysian giants Johor Darul Ta'zim (JDT) during the September FIFA match window (2-10 September) at the Kallang Football Hub . A training tour to Japan is planned for October, during which the Lions are set to face three different J1 clubs in

Coach Ogura must prepare to take a bold step now Little time should be wasted now since the writings are already on the wall following the announcement of the draw for the groupings of the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup (hereafter referred to as the AFF Championship ) on 21st May. THE CHALLENGE AHEAD FOR COACH OGURA With both Lion City Sailors and BG Tampines Rovers participating in the AFC Champions League 2 (ACL 2) — the former in the group stage and the latter in the play-off round ** (see footnote) as the second-best local team — it is an opportune time for national coach Tsutoma Ogura to broaden his scouting scope. This is particularly pertinent given the scheduling overlap between the biennial regional showpiece and ACL 2 , the new second-tier continental club tournament where many key Lions players are likely to be involved. OPPORTUNITIES FOR NEW TALENTS Since the AFF Championship is a non-FIFA sanctioned tournament, clubs are under no obligation to release their players for

Why are we repeating? I have to be brutally honest on this - I really see no point in coming up with this year's "Annual Review" when most of the stuff that I going to talk about are mere repetitions all along. YOUNG LIONS Seems like much of what happened in the past twelve months stayed largely status quo with the Young Lions remaining bottom at the Singapore Premier League (SPL) table for another year. To make things worse when the bulk of the Young Lions that formed the SEA (South East Asian) Games squad got hammered 7-0 by arch-rivals Malaysia  (highlights below from Mediacorp Youtube channel ), it triggered a massive public outrage on how things went bad to worse. The above-mentioned coupled with that disastrous AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup outing months earlier did little help but more damage to the beleaguered sport which used to be a focal point of the nation in the long-gone past. CONVENIENCE SOURCE FOR MEME Instead, local football relegated itself to be a sour

 AFF ME Cup 2022 - Singapore 3-2 Myanmar 241222 Referee taking the control in the box A hard-fought battle saw Singapore get off to a good start in their AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup campaign against Myanmar at the JBS. Ilhan Fandi, Shah Shahiran and Shawal Anuar scored in the Lions' 3-2 win over the Myanmarese. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REST OF THE MATCH PICTURES AFF ME Cup 2022 - Singapore 0-0 Vietnam 301222 The extra scoreboard at Jalan Besar Stadium A half-turbo Vietnamese side found themselves up against a determined Singapore team to see the hosts maintain their unbeaten record in the ongoing AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2022 with a goalless draw at JBS. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REST OF THE MATCH PICTURES

Why is it so? Read on  It was the right decision for me not to snap in the recently concluded AFF Suzuki Cup , which I would like to show my greatest appreciation to Mr Jaron Lee for helping this platform when I felt I was not physically and mentally prepared for that regional marquee tournament. In the meantime, we also noticed the increased presence of "fan-based media" like myself during the abovementioned tournament who also have been actively churning out content for the past one, two years. The emergence of these new players is a welcome sight, and it is also a constant reminder to me that the need to be innovative in order to stay relevant in the field. BEING SELECTIVE NOW I thought with the proliferation of social media tools which are now seen as a "must-have" for many organizations and individuals, information posted on these new media domains can be shared, re-curated by other platforms easily . This is why weeks right after the end of the 2021 Singapore

Kyoga Nakamura's deal - a bigger news I can sense that excitement when Tampines Rovers surprised everyone when they dished out an unprecedented contract to bind Kyoga Nakamura for the next five years . After all, a commitment for that duration is something unheard of in local football where it was a common thing to see one or, if lucky, a two-year contract for the players. Furthermore, it came at a time when the economy is not doing well when most of us are worrying about our bread and butter. CONTINUING OF THE HYPE? The surfacing of this development definitely gave us a "wow" reaction, and probably something of a continuation of hype after the heroics of the Lions that melted the hearts of the nation in the recent AFF Suzuki Cup followed by the signing of Izwan Mahbud and M Anumanthan to the big-spending Lion City Sailors (LCS). Not forgetting Albirex Niigata (Singapore) made eyes turn when they roped in former Japanese international Tadanari Lee  ( Lee is famous for s

Indonesia (red) and Thailand (blue) are finalists of AFF Suzuki Cup 2020 Final (credit: Jaron Lee) While it may seem like a different concept when he made the suggestion in 1977, but the ongoing AFF Suzuki Cup - a tournament contested by Asean nations should be the brainchild of Indonesian Benny Moelyono. Speaking to The Straits Times during 1978 Pre-World Cup qualifiers, the then Indonesia assistant team manager proposed an "Asean Cup soccer tournament, run along the lines of the UEFA Cup" According to Moelyono, Asean "needs is a meaningful competition," and invitation tournaments like King's Cup (of Thailand), Merdeka Cup (Tournament of Malaysia) were for the "sake of it" which did not arouse national spirit like the Asean tournament he proposed. The idea of "Asean Cup" first mooted in 1977 (credit: NLB archive ) "I'm sure it would be a success. Besides helping Asean countries improve their soccer standards, the tournament would

Plenty of blunders were made in the official tournament programme of AFF Suzuki Cup 2020, according to a friend of mine. In a series of text messages, my friend highlighted these mistakes with illustrations forwarded for my reference. "TWO-LEGGED" ONLY STARTED IN 2004 On the "Roll of Honour' page of the programme (as illustrated), said my friend: "From 2004 , the knockout stage is played over two legs on a home-and-away format.", pointed out using those emojis on the glaring mistakes made such as wrongly listed Singapore beat Vietnam "on aggregate" to win her first international honour - the Tiger Cup in 1998 . "My friend" claimed this was a 1997 SEA Games team photo The next things being singled out were the wrong Singapore team photo used in introducing the tournament history and the name of the tournament. "(It was the) wrong (Singapore team) photo used on 1996 First ever “AFF Suzuki Cup”, (it) should be (called the) Tiger Cup. I

An IG poll was conducted to see how many noticed this poster There is some marketing buzz going on for the upcoming AFF Suzuki Cup though I am not sure how many noticed this banner while strolling along this busy walkway of Bishan MRT station? Not that far away from this station is Bishan Stadium - the venue for most of the Group B matches. One thing to take note of is the stadium is installed with a new natural grass surface (picture below) which I had a look at recently from the nearby Bishan Sports Hall. Being a surface that was only laid not that long ago, not sure if it is able to withstand the robustness of the team like the Vietnamese who are known for their pace. (maybe someone with some horticultural knowledge can answer that)? Will Vietnam thrive on this new surface? In the meantime, the delay in the announcement of the ticketing and broadcasting details caused some anxieties among the local fans during the run-up to the biennial showpiece. Yet when the ticketing details we

1) I never utilize the "story" function available on Instagram until June last year when I posted my first "story" in June 2020. As I used to think why should I bother to post something which only lasts for 24 hours. It was only after I posted my first poll in November 2021 and realized how useful it is to solicit feedback and understand the ground's sentiments on various issues on local football. Like this poll, I conducted to find the fans' preferred mode to watch their AIA Singapore Premier League matches. A marginal majority preferred at the stadium 2) This recent poll was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek attempt to gauge how was the response seemed to be one-sided, and Shopee did reply after I tagged them in this story. I never expect Shopee would reply after I posted this 3) On a serious note, this poll was conducted right after the draw of the AFF Suzuki Cup which is scheduled to take place in Singapore at the end of the year. And seems like many are

39th FAS Annual Congress (picture credit: FAS) The following are some of the key points mentioned in the 39th Football Association of Singapore (FAS) Annual Congress . A) From the 2022 Singapore Premier League (SPL) season onwards, the fielding of one Under-23 (U23) player instead of three in the starting lineup. B) No limit on the number of U23 players registered in each SPL squad. C) Young elite leagues to resume in the 2022 season (subject to prevailing circumstances). D) FAS will "put in a strong and determined bid to host" AFF Suzuki Cup . I thought the biggest takeaways would be points (A) and (C) , especially for the former that head coaches would not find themselves in a constrained situation and give more flexibility to field their ideal XI. The move to revive the youth elite leagues is a good one and hopefully, we can see a conduit in place to allow proper progression than having a fast-tracking mode that saw more teenage players in a top-tier league in this s

Most of those relive-the-glory-days moments would always have that 1994 Malaysia Cup-winning video shown but overlooked the few other notable moments - the 1998 victory over Vietnam in Hanoi that saw us win our very FIRST international honour - the Tiger Cup before repeating the same feat in 2004 at Kallang when we won at HOME - in front of a full capacity (old) National Stadium and not forgetting the 2007 and 2012 moments of glories too. The 1994 Malaysia Cup triumph moment, as seen in an exhibition at the National Museum   Yet many times, many social media postings seem to favour the footage from the 1994 Shah Alam victory when comes to savouring that bit of nostalgia. "It feels like you celebrate your 25th anniversary at work by showcasing the company that fired you as (a) prelude." remarked a friend after seeing it on the  AIA Singapore Premier League Facebook Page of the 1994 Malaysia Cup Final last year. TESTAMENT FOR THE FLEDGLING S.LEAGUE Don't get me wrong, whi

Maybe we will not say it now but who knows twenty years down the road, we would proudly declare: "The era under Raddy Avramovic was the greatest ever in Singapore football!", I am sure there are some people who read the words earlier would recommend me to see a psychiatrist now. How on earth would that be possible when that period while the Serbian was the coach of the Singapore national team was considered by many as a watershed in the local football despite successfully guided the Lions to three Asean titles in 2004, 2007, 2012 and accoladed himself as the "Coach of the Year" by Asean Football Federation back in 2013. 20 years later we would thank Raddy for his work done for us  Ironically, it was because of those honours gathered during that period that when people start to reminisce about the "glorious" past and those records would speak for themselves and some would say "yes, those were the days..." and start to talk about those nosta