Lessons in youth development for Singapore football

At the recent Asean Football Federation Under-19 Championship in Indonesia, Singapore’s national under-19 team returned home with four defeats out of five games, including a 4-0 loss to Indonesia, a 5-0 loss to Laos and a 6-0 loss to Thailand.

The performances, especially the loss to perennial minnows Laos, have raised more questions on the standard of youth football in Singapore.

What is certain is that the players need further development before they are ready for a higher level of football.

With the current rules in the Singapore Premier league (SPL) requiring clubs to sign at least six players below the age of 23 and the abolishment of the prime league - the reserve team soccer league of the previous S.League - we can expect several players from this under-19 team to join various SPL clubs in the next couple of years.   

Yet it is not ideal for their development if they are going to be thrown into the deep end before they are ready.

How then do we fix this? There are lessons in youth development that we can learn from both near and far.

Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger once stated that he used a three-stage model in youth development.

The first stage is recruitment or talent identification, the second is the development or quality of footballing education that a player receives and third, the timing of integration into the first team.

As a manager who has consistently produced top young talent, this model would be something worth considering.

Traces of the model can already be seen in Singapore football and this will be elaborated on in the examples below. The key now would be to put them altogether to devise a plan that is sustainable.

IDENTIFYING TALENT

Albirex Niigata recently won the SPL with six games to go in the season.

At a press conference, its coach Kazuaki Yoshinaga stated that the foundation for Albirex’s success was laid in the 15 years that it has participated in the local league.

This was an acknowledgement of the system and processes that the club has committed to since its first season in Singapore.

Having only won its first league title 12 years after coming to Singapore and sweeping every trophy on offer thereafter, Albirex is certainly reaping the fruits of its labour now.

This achievement deserves more praise especially given that it has had to change a bulk of its squad each season due to the departure of players for other teams and leagues and recently due to the SPL rule change which required the club to have half of their players below the age of 21.

Its success is thus a clear indication that the club has achieved the right balance in its talent identification and recruitment policy.

The club holds trials in Japan for footballers aged between 18 and 23 enticing them with the opportunity of playing professional football in Singapore.

The players who eventually make the team are carefully selected by the head coach who picks players that he believes he can work with and that would also fit into his system of play.

Albirex has been able to identify the right players and thereafter develop them to ensure that they play up to the standards required by the club.

The Japanese club’s recruitment was extended this season to include Adam Swandi, 22, and Shahul Rayyan, 23, when the club agreed to take on two Singaporean players.

While Shahul is yet to play for the club, the wisdom of picking Adam as one of the local players to fit into its system has been evidenced by his displays in the SPL thus far where he leads the league in assists.

Albirex’s commitment to excellence and eye for talent is admirable and is something that the FAS should learn from.

After all, it is also worth noting that Albirex has been able to identify top-scoring strikers from Japan in recent years; a problem that Singapore has tried to address for years.

The AFF championship results also indicate that the quality of footballing education that our young footballers have received has fallen behind that of our neighbours. However, amidst the negativity, there has been a bit of good news.

Ben Davis recently became the first Singaporean to sign a professional contract with an English Premier League club by signing for Fulham FC.

While much of the news has been about his application for deferment, it is worth remembering that this was a player who was largely developed in Singapore.

Ben Davis’ formative years in football were spent at the JSSL academy in Singapore and one of the coaches responsible for his development was current Tampines Rovers assistant coach, Gavin Lee.

Despite his young age, Gavin has years of experience and is also the pioneer of JSSL’s elite academy which identifies and develops JSSL’s best players separately.

Players from this academy have gone on to become youth internationals and some others have either received training invitations or have signed with clubs overseas.

Gavin carefully designs the curriculum for the various teams in JSSL’s elite academy based on the players' differing stages of development and maturity ensuring that they get optimal training to bring the best out of them.

In addition to thrice-weekly training sessions, Gavin tailor makes weekly handouts filled with tactical and technical information for the different age groups and supplements these handouts with video examples to help the players understand the various skills and tactics involved in the game.

By adapting his programmes to the players’ needs and understanding at various ages, Gavin ensures that he gets the best out of players.

His track record at youth level thus shows that with the right development plans in place, we can produce more players like Ben Davis.

This again is another example that the FAS can learn from in terms of devising and tailoring programmes to bring out the best in our youth footballers.

Wenger said integrating a young player into the first time at the right time is critical but also the most difficult to get right.

Premature integration into first-team football could stunt the growth of some players and ruin their careers.

He also noted that while 23 is typically the right age for most players, there is no set age for when it would be right as it varies for each player.

At Arsenal and even with Ben Davis at Fulham, players continue to train with the under-18 and under-23 teams, where they are ensured of adequate playing opportunities to hone their skills and are only invited to join the first team when they are ready.

Similarly, the SPL would do well to re-introduce the prime league to ensure that players are given time to develop and have adequate playing opportunities before they are eased into first team football when they are ready.

The above examples all indicate that there are no shortcuts to youth development.

Time and effort need to be put into the process and we need to be patient. Rather than blanket rules, we would do well to acknowledge and adapt our policies to cater to the differing needs and development of our young players.

The FAS indicated that the recent rule changes for SPL was implemented to accelerate the development of our young players.

In response, we only need to note what John Wooden, a highly successful college basketball coach in America said; “It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sudhershen Hariram is a lawyer with Tan Rajah & Cheah and played for Tanjong Pagar United FC in the S League from 2011 to 2012.