BoLASEPaKO.com - A Blog on Singapore Football

Coach Kraljevic speaking to the media (credit: Playmaker ) After their first pre-season friendly match against the visiting Johor Darul Takzim II (JDT II) that ended in a two-all draw at the Toa Payoh Stadium, Balestier Khalsa's Croatian coach Marko Kraljevic breathe a sign of relief when he addressed the media pack after the match. Said the Singapore permanent resident:"This is the only second time we used the pitch after it was closed for maintenance and I am feeling okay and relief after able to do so after a month, "I thought we started promising for the first twenty minutes before things don't turn out well for us, overall I think we did well but we just need some time to adjust, since our foreign players only arrived last week." summarized by Coach Kraljevic on his thoughts on sharing the spoils with the Malaysia Premier League side that is led by Goran Paulic, his former teammate at the Toa Payoh-based club during the days of the semi-professiona

Adam Swandi scored in the 75th minute  True enough, to do well in the 28th South East Asia (SEA) Games football competition in coming June will be the utmost priority for the perceived national developmental squad - Courts Young Lions in the first phrase of this season's S.League. Speaking to the media after conceded a three-one defeat to the visiting Johor Darul Takzim II at the Jalan Besar Stadium, Coach Aide Iskandar confirmed the notion by added during the first six-month of the domestic season will not see any of their foreign signings feature in action. One option to allow their foreign signings (i.e.: Canadians Jordan Webb and Sherif El-Masri) to gain some match fitness is to loan them out during the preparation period, as the former national skipper explained. Suria Prakash (middle) burst through the attention "One of the options we can think of is to try our best to loan out of our foreign signings during the first six months of the season. "This

Balestier's latest move caused many jaws to drop Having hyped up the fraternity with their out-of-the-box online recruitment process , S . League club Balestier Khalsa had identified a number of those who came forward to register their interest in pursuing a professional football career by interviewing some of those who had been shortlisted. "We had identified a list of players from those who applied and interviewed some of them," said Mr Cheng Tim Nee, the club general manager who confirmed this information with this blogger over a series of text exchanges. However, as mentioned by club chairman Mr S Thavaneson in the papers  it's not because the club is facing a shortage of players for the coming season that will see the Tigers represent the Republic in the AFC Cup as the reigning Singapore Cup winners, but it's more about viewing it as a long-term program for the club. Poh Yifeng (foreground) gets a chance to play in Asia this year As such, it

This article first appeared as a posting on the blog's Facebook Page days before 2015 and it was written by Mr David Ng who called himself "an old friend of singapore football". With his permission I decided to reproduce the posting as a form of guest columnist piece and the first piece of the year. Coach Bernd Stange was given a lifeline recently  I am relief that (current national coach Bernd) Stange is given a chance to prove himself and his method. He credential and his achievement speak of who he is and is capable of achieving. It cannot be that he is successful elsewhere but suddenly he is a flop in Singapore. Otherwise, why would FAS after so many months of selection choose him. (Former national coach ) Raddy (Avramovic) has (Aleksandar) Duric, (Daniel) Bennett and a few others to help him. It is now up to the mentality of the players to professionally accept his style of training and play and get out of their comfort zone and learn new tactic

Coach Steinebrunner is cautious Having assembled a stellar cast for the upcoming season, it is not unusual to say Geylang International are embarking their way back to the glory days when they once ruled the land back in the late 1980s till early 1990s, clinched the S.League titles in 1996 and 2001 with Singapore Cup in 2009 as their most recent taste of glory (as Geylang United). "It's still early days," said a cautious Geylang coach Jorg Steinebrunner when such suggestion was made to him. "The whole idea now is to move away from playing long ball like we did last season and keep the ball with more mobility in our game. "And that is one of the reasons we signed players like (Tatsuro) Inui, Bruno (Castanheira) and (Jozef) Kaplan, who are able to give the speed and advantage during one-on-one situation." added the German coach. Bruno Castanheira shields the ball Beside the mentioned trio, the Bedok-based club also recruited local players like