Commentary: Let the children play - Singapore's 'best chance' to achieve football success starts in its schools

At that young age, football is usually safe. Hard or reckless challenges are unlikely. In fact, many European countries encourage boys and girls to play football together up to the age of 12.  

Our challenge in urbanised, land-scarce Singapore is to secure a safe, open place for children to play. 

This is why I have consistently advocated getting football back into schools as our best chance.  

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Schools have open spaces for play and provide a safe environment, the latter important in assuring parents that their children are taken care of while they play football.

Allowing our children to run around and play with each other for a short time after school is something we need to encourage given the pull that modern digital devices exert on them. 

In so doing they will bond and create lifelong memories. Most of us who played as kids still vividly remember the childhood friends in our teams.      

At this stage, there is no need for complicated set-ups, just a safe playing environment with supervision from a parent, teacher or grassroots coach, and perhaps a football coordinator to identify the more talented players. We simply have to let our kids play.

It is through play that we can achieve two critical fundamentals of a functioning ecosystem – expanding the talent pool and lighting the fire of early elite development.

ACADEMICS AND SPORTING EXCELLENCE 

Playing for fun is essential, but at some stage the more talented must take a different path to improve. This is the pathway students must take in the “Let Them Soar” track.     

In 1957, Dutchman Johan Cruyff, the best player of his generation, joined the Ajax Amsterdam academy at the age of 10.  In 1995, Lionel Messi, the best player of this generation, joined the Rosario academy at the age of eight. 

In 2004, a six-year-old Trent Alexander Arnold, joined Liverpool’s academy. 

In short, the elite formula seems to be to start early.  An elite programme therefore requires a strong commitment from both footballers and parents. There are similarities across Europe.  

Most non-residential elite academies have three to four training sessions a week, each lasting two hours. As players enter their teenage years, residential programmes come into the picture - like Qatar’s Aspire or Barcelona’s La Masia.  

Here, training intensity is even higher.  Players have up to 10 training sessions a week, conducted across five days. 

Elite programmes stretch over 40 weeks a year, with 12 weeks of break, and feature a minimum of 35 competitive matches a year. This duration and intensity is something we must match if we are to achieve our goals.    

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For young players to succeed, they need to remain disciplined, focused and motivated, including in their academic pursuits. This requires strong support to the player as a whole. The buy-in from parents is also crucial. 

For many parents, that buy-in comes with the caveat that sporting excellence must not be at the expense of academic pursuits. As such, in all elite programmes, sporting excellence and academia must go together.  

The CEO of Sport Singapore Lim Teck Yin best expressed this when he said that embracing multiple demands is a crucial life skill, and this helps Singapore’s young become more resilient.

These academies need to be led by not only an experienced and qualified football youth coach, but also someone who can also be a life coach for young people.    

A SINGAPORE APPROACH 

How do we deliver this in a Singapore ecosystem? Centrally, we can support all academies in certain shared services, like sports science and curriculum. Programmes can be delivered both in schools, like in America, or in clubs as in Europe.  

Both can co-exist and be complementary in our football development.

Some clubs in Singapore, both professional and amateur, are already doing their part in developing youth talent and we should study where this can be enhanced.

However, it is in the area of schools that we must do more. 

My experience as a board member of Singapore Sports School has taught me there are advantages in serving up sporting excellence and academia under a single roof: There can be stronger alignment between the four critical stakeholders – the athlete, parent, coach and teacher. 

Problems arising from academic and sporting performance can be handled holistically.  

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There are also logistical advantages for school children, including not having to travel separately for training.  

For the school, it is almost certain that school identity and pride will be strengthened considerably by having an elite sports team, as it does with schools in America. 

At the beginning of this long journey, let’s look at possibilities and not obstacles.  And what of the outcome?  

If we fall short of raising the Singapore flag at the 2034 World Cup Finals, but we are left with a vibrant football fraternity, Singaporean children aspiring to reach the pinnacle of the sport, a structure that provides a platform for kids to grow and achieve, our best footballers playing in top leagues overseas, and a national ecosystem that continues to support careers and dreams - we are winners still.

Bernard Tan is Deputy President of the Football Association of Singapore.