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Need to develop better youth players
Last month, Singapore’s Under-19 team was eliminated in the group stage of the ASEAN Under-19 Men’s Championship.
Fazulhasni Julaimi’s side ended the tournament with two losses (1-2 to Thailand, 0-5 to Malaysia) and one win, 2-0 against Brunei.
Next month, the U-19 side will compete in the AFC U-20 Asian Cup qualifiers, where they will face hosts Qatar, Jordan and Hong Kong.
Speaking on Wednesday, technical director Michael Brown said there were positives to take from the tournament but acknowledged the need to “develop better players”.
“That’s not a criticism of the players we have or that they’re not good enough. But the system they’ve been put in place, we’re not producing players to the proper level,” he said.
Brown said it was important to give players more opportunities to play at the “right level”.
In the short term, the U-19 players will play three training matches with Singapore Premier League teams in mid-September in preparation for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Championship.
He added that each match will be divided into three phases of 45 minutes each.
“During the preparation for the AFC tournament, we tried to ensure that the players participating in the tournament were able to play longer,” he said.
He added that, going forward, that could mean raising the “level” of the under-21 league by making tweaks to its structure or format.
Brown was appointed technical director in July 2022 and his contract was recently extended for a further year.
The Football Association of Singapore previously said his role was to “oversee all aspects of the development of football in Singapore, including being responsible for the formulation and implementation of local football development programmes”.
“There are four main factors in developing players. One is talent identification, quality of training, quantity of training and match programming… We are now working on building the structure that will enable that and then we will be able to develop better players,” he said.
Such a transformation would not happen overnight, he added, citing the example of Qatar about two decades ago.
Brown spent 10 years in Qatar as head coach of the country’s Aspire Academy, where he held various positions including as director of scouting for the national team.
He added: “It is possible, but … it’s important to put the right structures in place and give it time to work. I think it will work.”
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