Warriors found in Singapore !

I brought my boys to participate in the ANZA International Football tournament last week and it turn out to be one of the best tourney I have been to. Although my boys did not win the championship, but they show character, passion and a never say die attitude.

On the 1st day of the tournament, we did not really play well. Hard to fault the boys as it is a big difference between playing 7 aside football and 11 aside football. In Shanghai, our league matches are on a 7 aside basis. Game play is always on short passing and since its half field, movement on the pitch is little. When we play in the 11 aside tournament in Singapore, our style of play makes it a little bit difficult to penetrate the opponents defense. In these 11 aside game, short passing is ok but there must be movement all around including off the ball movement which we are not used to.

We manage to scrap two 1-0 victory against the host teams and in the meaningless final group game, we lost 4-1. In the cup competition, we lost the 1st game 2-0 against CUKI from Thailand and drew 1-1 against Arsenal Football School. Although there are improvement in our play, but it is still not enough and I decided to do some changes on the next day. What I need now is a midfielder that can spray long balls for our forward to chase on.

On the 2nd day, we are up against another host team. We beat them 2-0 and played some great football. The test came when we are up against International Soccer Academy. Strongest team in the tournament and eventually they are the champions. We made a bad mistake in the early minutes and are down 1-0. But wow..my boys reaction is absolutely spot on. My boys fought back like losing is not an option. We manage to create some chances and eventually we concede in the last minute as we are pushing for the equalizer but I'll have to say although we lost 2-0, this is the best game my boys played during the tournament.

On our last Cup game, we lost 2-1 to Putra FC. Ar finalist in the tournament tat played ISA. We are 1-0 up but due to inexperience, we concede 2 goals in the last 5 minutes. A good lesson for the boys to learn on not to rush the play while you are leading with 5 minutes to go.

Now hopefully the boys understand why some teams are slow in throw ins, some coach makes last minute substitution, why some players suddenly drop down injured...these are all steps to cool down the opponents when they are all over you and trying to get the goal.

I'll have to say I'm pretty proud of my boys achievement on coming in 5th place in the tourney. The heat and getting used to 11 aside football is no easy task...but my boys fought hard..really hard. And I'm sure they did not fight hard for me or for themselves...they fought hard for their parents. On the 2nd day, before the our 1st match I told the boys you are not playing for yourself or for the team anymore, YOU ARE PLAYING FOR YOUR PARENTS...FOR THE SACRIFICE THAT THEY HAVE MADE TO BRING YOU HERE. I think that quote manage to raise the boy's game. I have never seen them work so hard in Shanghai and for parents of these boys..I thank them for allowing them to become a WARRIOR in my U12 team.

" Now win it for your parents eh !! "

On my personal view, ANZA tournament brought my boys closer together. They fought hard for each other. Also is brings the parents closer together as well and for me, there is a bond between me and the boys now. A strong bond...I'm all motivated to win something with these boys..and I know I will.

Charlie, Sebastian, Joe, Oliver, Toby, Lance, Max, Coach Wan

Kieran, Ola, Nicholas, Jacob, Spencer, David Gu

Now thats a bit arrogant

While doing my rounds on the cyber world, I came upon this local club in Malaysia. They called themselves a club that will provide football education but this quote on their website regarding on " Starting your own football club " does tick me off.

Title : Opening Your Football Academy

You think people will join your academy because of your name? Do you have any background in football? Who qualify you to work on your own? What are your objective, mission and vision? You just want to make money? By the way, what is your experience? How about knowledge, skills and management skills? What is your expertise? Have you done the market research? How much do you want to invest? You think your ‘A’ License is good enough? Ok. You are famous before, Sorry what is your name again? The truth is, we had tried to believe people like you before, sorry to say, however… why not?

Look at this guy. What? You have been with FAM and few states F.A before? Ok. So what? Are you a risk taker? What is your product packaging and services? What about representation? Do you think FAM can support you? What? You are jobless now? How many students you expect? How much you going to charge your students?

Sorry bro, where are you going to open your office? With whom you want to register your academy? Or you just want to be like most football academies, they don’t have office at all. Some of them operate in school, collecting money with nothing to promise! Most of them did not provide any receipts for payment!

Who is going to coach? How about you? How many players can you coach within 2 hours program? Where is your field? You know what? There are cases where school teacher think that the school field is their own property, not the public. What? You have got a politician behind you, so GOOD LUCK!

Tired of operating on your own? Or, want to give a try?

Now lets begin, first of all the about the above quotes. No doubt some of the questions are spot on. Stuff that you need to know when you start a football club, but still I found the way of this club sending this info out is pure arrogant. More or less like " We can do it right, you can't "

Then I begin to search for answers if they are that good. First thing I found out on this club website is they don't train regularly. From what I see is they only train once a week in multiple locations. I don't know what is their set up, but I will only comment on what kind of info I found from their website. Now come on..training only once a week ?? What does the players get ? We all know practices makes perfect ! So you train once a week and have multiple locations for your activities...I smell money making machine. Doubt they even care about improving the boys as training once a week just does not cut it.

Hopefully this club have a separate program that trains regularly and if not, I felt bad for these parents buying into this club goals and missions.

Then on this quote taken from above "What? You have got a politician behind you, so GOOD LUCK!"

I found out that the founder of this club is a Chief of Youth Movement in a certain political party AKA he is a politician..so yeah..Good Luck.

Its just sad to see our local Malaysian youth don't have any channels to improve themselves, to showcase themselves. No doubt there are some good youth development football clubs in KL, but mostly are targeting expats and wealthy local boys that can pay. And the price is just impossible for these parents of lower and middle income youth players to pay.

Me personally would like to change things, but its beyond my capacity. I have stated many times, in order to run a proper football academy for the locals, the 1st thing I need to have is my own football facility. That way, the club won't be relying on fees to survive as with its own facility, it can generate incomes through other means. Investors..anyone???

Then, we need to change the mindset of the parents why they should allow their boys to pursue a career in football. The list go on...

Certainly its hard work, but if I have the capacity to do it, I will as I believe many of our local boys have talents.