Did FAS shot themselves in their foot?

Did FAS shot themselves in their foot with the organizing of the NexLions Cup? It may seemed like a U19 tournament for the players, but it don’t seemed like a proper tournament with only 4 teams and playing knockout format. They got 3 teams to fly from Europe and just play for 2 matches over a weekend, which just seemed so ridiculous. I think the turnout for the matches were also up to FAS’s expectation.

Singapore vs Thailand

Hurray!! Singapore beat Thailand 3-1 in the first leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup final. By the basis of this result, Singapore should already have a hand on the trophy. But then, this is just the first half. With the 2^nd leg on Saturday in Bangkok, the Lions must show more confidence and fighting spirit if they want bring back the cup.

Singapore, Sportmanship, Pride

It has been a busy week of sports this week! Just last weekend, I was at the Jurong East Sports Hall, watching the National Wushu and Sanda Championship. Then throughout the week, the Singapore Hockey ladies were involved in the Women’s AHF Cup. Not to forget, our National Football team was in action in the AFF Suzuki Cup semifinals against the Philippines.

Dramatic Year End Finale

Finally free for a new post and lots of things did happened in the last few weeks. As mentioned in earlier posts, the last race of the F1 season did finished dramatically, and it ended up another heart break for me! Who would have thought that Sebastien Vettel would have a disastrous start to end up in last place in the opening lap and went on to finish the race as the World Champion. Alonso did whatever he could to finish 2^nd in the race, but still lost to Vettel by mere 3 points.

Rome is not built in one day, Roman

Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea is becoming a running joke in the football scene, with the latest sacking of Roberto Di Matteo. What does he actually think in his mind, nobody will ever know. Big name coaches like Felipe Scholari, Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho had all faced the exit door unwillingly. Even winning the ultimate prize of the Champions League, Di Mateo was also being shown the door. So what do Roman actually wants? If football is just a system of pressing a button for results in an ideal situation, then Roman would have been the god of the football industry. 

F1 Finale: Vettel vs Alonso

Things sure look interesting this weekend for the Brazilian F1 GP race at the Interlagos circuit. Sebastien Vettel is leading the championship by 13 points over Fernando Alonso. With the reliability and speed of his Red Bull, finishing ahead of Alonso should be a certainty and being crowned the youngest triple World Champion. However, unpredictability always plays a significant role in F1. Remember how Kimi Raikonnen won his world crown in 2007 at Ferrari at the last race, despite being the heavy underdog going into the last round of the championships, and Lewis Hamilton winning his world title practically at the last corner of the race to usurp Felipe Massa in the 2008 overall standings, and becoming the youngest world champion. Even while Jenson Button was with Brawn GP and having the fastest and most reliable car in 2009, he could only finished in the midpoints, being unable to overtake Kamui Kobayashi for most part of the race, ensuring the minimum points that was needed to crown him a world champion. 

S League Players' Musical Chairs

It’s the time of the year yet again where you see the S League players play a few rounds of musical chairs with different clubs, which means the local transfer season. Good players will be poached, while luckier players may just get enough chance to stay in the game to be called professional players. Unluckier players probably will just have to hang up their boots and "retire", whom they may be only in the mid-twenties or younger.

It is actually quite a sad case looking at the S League transfer market although the product has been around for so many years. From my personal perspective, football is a profession which is the same as white collar jobs. However, plying their trade in S League would not give them enough job security. Most of the players are basically on short term contracts of about 2 years, and what happens after that depends heavily on a few factors:

                  1.       Their skills

                  2.       Wage demands

                  3.       Clubs’ budget

Save Our S League

So the 2012 S League season has finished with the culmination of the awards ceremony, where deserving winners getting the accolades. It has been a dramatic year of football for the Singapore scene. With the Lions XII participating in the Malaysia Cup, the kind of atmosphere last seen in Kallang, was being brought back many times during the season. Tears of joy and disappointment, elation and frustration at the tactical play, seemed to bring the Singaporeans back to the glory days of us cheering as one. If the national team, which is mainly made up of Lions XII players, goes on to achieve respectable success at the Suzuki Cup, and then this project can be considered a success.

Olympics so far, Bronze for Feng Tian Wei

It has been a funny Olympics so far. The host nation don't seem to be dominating at any of the sports and struggling to win the medals. The favourites for different sports have been showing indifferent form at this Games, when they should be peaking at the right time to win the honours. Suddenly you see Phelps being squeeze out on medals, beaten by Lochte, USA beaten in swimming relays, Spain down and out of football, World Champions Argentina beaten in women's hockey. Don't be surprised that Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake being beaten by unknowns in the 100m sprint in athletics.

What next for local football?

It's been more than 6 months since my last post and it was about the Malaysia Cup. Well, the Malaysian Super League has ended and the Malaysia Cup (post season) will be starting soon. Looking at the results that the LionsXII obtained, they did achieved their target in the league, which is to finish in the top 5. In fact they did even better to finish as runners up. Congratulations!

May still be early to say, but will the Malaysia Cup achieve the objectives?

When news of FAS sending a team to participate in the Malaysia Cup broke, everybody out in the streets rejoiced. The initial agreement was for FAS and FAM to each send a development team to each other’s league to develop the team. FAS initially said that this team will be made up of mostly U23 players, developing them for the future for playing in the National team. After months of anticipation, the team was announced and it looked a pretty strong team with player from Courts Young Lions and National players. FAS and the coaching team of Lions XII said that they will be targeting a top 5 finish, which actually sounded realistic then.