S’pore Under-16s need more exposure and experience, says fraternity after Lion City Cup losses

SINGAPORE – There are valuable lessons to be learnt from the Singapore Under-16 football team’s defeats at the recent Lion City Cup (LCC), said the community on Oct 8.

The Cubs suffered two losses – 1-0 to Thailand’s BG Pathum United in the semi-finals and a 5-1 mauling by Causeway rivals Johor Darul Takzim in the third-place play-off.

Football Association of Singapore president Bernard Tan said the results were a way to benchmark the progress of the team.

“This is a national team and you have to develop your own players,” he said at Unleash The Roar!’s Football Conversation dialogue at the Lifelong Learning Institute. “The project is about benchmarking ourselves and telling ourselves where we are. This is not a short-term project. It is not as if I’m taking over a team and we can recruit and buy players to form a team.”

Former Singapore international Aleksandar Duric was disappointed at the way the tournament ended for the boys.

He said: “I’d hoped to see a much better and bigger performance by the boys. They were under enormous pressure and you can see now what we’re missing is international games for these boys.”

Duric, the principal of the ActiveSG Football Academy (AFA) admitted the boys needed more exposure and experience, especially in dealing with a hostile crowd.

“They should play more games like this as much as we can throughout the year, and not just wait for this Cup once a year and drop these boys into the fire.”

Head coach of AFA and former international Rafi Ali described the U-16s who competed in the LCC as “a bunch of individuals playing in the same team”.

He said: “But, we see something good in them, we see something positive in them, they can (play), they can pass, so we need to build them because this team may be the core of the team that is going to be playing at the SEA Games in Singapore 2029.”

On Cubs coach Angel Toledano omitting defender Kieran Tan and midfielder Nathan Mao, who scored twice in the 2023 edition, from the squad, Duric said: “If it’s a discipline problem, the easiest way is to just drop the player, but the hardest way is to get that player in the team and teach him those football values.

“The youngsters, they make mistakes, we need to guide them properly and teach them to be players. I’m not in favour of dropping the players just because of (certain reasons).”

Correction note: In an earlier version of the story, we said that at the association’s Football Conversation dialogue. This is incorrect. It should be at Unleash The Roar!’s Football Conversation dialogue. We are sorry for the error.