“Our youth teams are showing good progress since the Youth Olympic Games in 2010, but if these boys do not have a proper path to allow them to pursue their “careers”, it will lead to no where.”
While we cannot see what is happening internally in terms of the boys’ progress through the ranks, we will tend to have queries over the boys’ progress to the next stage in their careers. We have seen too many individual talents, dropping out of from the squad once National Service come calling.
I’ve seen with my own eyes many of my peers turning to distractions aside from football. Some became dispatch riders; some became McDelivery drivers, while some opted out to carry on their lives working in order to get better financial gains out of what they do.
There is a serious need to get something going, which in turn will prevent the boys from all these distractions. Any system in place is just similar to any other business model in the world. When you have a solution to a problem, there will not be a need for people to run away from the problem.
When a political figure declared the Singapore League opened 16 years ago, one of the objectives is to bring some of these youths together, so as to prevent them from wasting their lives away
I felt that while we have not done well in this aspect in recent years, it seemed that this “vision” is already long gone, and our system is in decline. This is one of the key areas which the authorities need to understand, before coming together trying to fix a problem over the short course.
Trying to fix the problem and pull a fast one off anything planned is not going to solve the problem in the domestic football scene. There is a need to understand the behavior of the youths, their needs and their mentality. While they are young, they have to be educated on what is expected of them.
In top European football countries, football coaches at different levels are assigned to study the behaviors and mentality of the players at different age. From there, they will act according to their strengths and weaknesses, and this is how football greats such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are standing at the top of the football world today.
I am not questioning the system that is in place now. It was observed that certain aspects of the system could be improved further. Improving it doesn’t mean getting notes off the Internet and blindly following it. While there is a need, go to where all the success stories are, and keep a look out on how to improve the youth development system in Singapore.
Last but not least, I quote an example brought to my attention about a week or so ago.
“What happens after
Sports
School ? How many of the boys actually make it to the U18 Squad? And in the end, how many make it to the U21, U23 and finally the National Team? The amount of talent that we are losing is at an alarming rate. If nothing is done, then we will go on wasting more and more talents.”
The YOG squad is a squad which is worth keeping together for a long period of time, while the AFF U16 Championships’ fourth placed team, will be one worth developing. However, we should not stop short at this, and instead, we should look at doing well on the continent in all age groups for now. We need not be world beaters, but we can be powerhouses on the continent. I am sure everyone knows this fact. Whether or not the authority continues to monitor their progress or not, only a certain group of people have the answer.
Well, readers may have a different perspective to what I have here, BUT do take some time to check on the various teams from the youth system and see if whatever i have mentioned is spot on. Only then, You will roughly know what I am talking about.
