Football: Lions coach Tatsuma Yoshida to run rule over 25 Singapore Premier League players

Singapore's national football team during a training session. Singapore will play Palestine away in the Fifa World Cup Group D qualifiers on March 26, 2020. PHOTO: FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION OF SINGAPORE

SINGAPORE - Four uncapped teenagers are among the 25 players called up by national football coach Tatsuma Yoshida on Monday (March 2) for training sessions, as part of preparations for the Lions' upcoming two Fifa World Cup Group D qualifiers.

Singapore will play Palestine away in Al-Ram on March 26 before returning to host group top seeds Saudi Arabia at the National Stadium five days later.

Yoshida's charges are third in Group D - which also comprises Uzbekistan and Yemen - with three games left to play in the second round of qualifiers.

The two training sessions at Geylang Field, on March 3 and 10, will give Yoshida the opportunity for a closer look at players based in the local Singapore Premier League (SPL). All six local SPL clubs are represented.

Foreign-based players like Lions skipper Hariss Harun who plays for Johor Darul Takzim in Malaysia and chief striker Ikhsan Fandi, who plays for Raufoss IL in Norway, are not required to attend.

Yoshida has also called up Lions regulars such as Lion City Sailors duo Shahdan Sulaiman (64 caps) and Gabriel Quak (35 caps), as well as untested faces like 19-year-olds Harith Kanadi, Jordan Vestering and Rezza Rezky, from Geylang International, Hougang United and Young Lions, respectively.

The fourth teenager in the training squad is Hougang winger Farhan Zulkifli, 17, who received a call-up in October 2019 but has not featured for the Lions.

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