Katerina Falida brings Greek experience to help Singapore women’s Under-16 football team

SINGAPORE – Moving over 9,000km from Greece to Singapore was initially challenging for Under-16 women’s national head coach Katerina Falida, who took up the role in November 2022.

Unfamiliar cuisine and the lack of seasons here were just some of the differences in culture that Falida had to deal with, but the Greek has since settled down well and is focused on her main task of guiding the young Lionesses.

Falida, who had mainly coached in her home country before this, was first intrigued by the Unleash The Roar! (UTR) project after hearing about it from former Football Association of Singapore technical director Joseph Palatsides.

Announced in 2021, the UTR project was introduced with various long-term initiatives to improve Singapore football.

Falida, 40, said: “It was really difficult in the beginning. The first month I was a bit lost but the people around me helped me. My colleagues and officials from the project helped me.”

The former Greek international goalkeeper believes her previous appointments as head coach of her country’s women’s U-19 and U-17 national teams will be beneficial for her current role. She also had coaching stints at Greek clubs Olympiakos and AEK Athens.

She said: “Anything that is related to development interests me, so I wanted to come and be part of this project to help Singapore develop their football with my experience.

“I was confident I would be able to develop the players and lead the team for the upcoming tournaments.”

Falida picked up the sport when she was six. But as there were not many girls’ clubs and academies back then, she mainly played with boys growing up. She eventually went on to make over 250 appearances in the women’s first division in Greece and represent the national team for over six years.

She held a player-coach role with Olympiakos, before transitioning to a full-time coach after her retirement in 2011.

She said: “I feel like I have the obligation to transfer my passion and knowledge to the new generation of players to get involved in football, to become better, to develop and stay in football for many years, not just as players.

“Women’s football has grown bigger and bigger, so it’s very important for female players to stay on and help the development of the game.”

Falida is pleased with what she has seen in her six months here, noting that there have been players with potential whom she hopes to help improve.

She said: “In this squad, there are some very talented and skilful players but we try to work in some other aspects, like we try to improve their physical abilities to make them stronger or improve their stamina, and of course to develop the technical and tactical aspects of their game.”

She will lead the team for their first international competitive tournament at this week’s AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup 2024 qualifiers at the Jalan Besar Stadium. Her side are in Group D and will first face Turkmenistan on Friday before playing Bangladesh two days later.

There will be eight teams in the final competition, with the top three teams from the 2019 AFC U-16 Women’s Championship – winners Japan, North Korea and China – and hosts Indonesia having already qualified.

But Falida is not putting too much pressure on her charges, saying: “I want them to be brave and confident on the pitch and represent the country with pride, so it’s really important that we are competing in Singapore. We will also give everything and the goal is to rank as high as possible.”